30,, 


THE  WOMAN 
WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN 


BY 

MINNIE  GILMORE 

AUTHOR   OF 
"A  SON   OF  ESAU,"   "PIPES   FROM   PRAIRIE-LAND,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

LOVELL,  CORYELL  &  COMPANY 

43>  45  AND  47  EAST  TENTH  STREET 


COPYRIGHT,  1892, 

BY 
UNITED  STATES  BOOK  COMPANY 


[All  rights  reserved} 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 


I. 

I  WILL  begin   by  confessing  the  truth,  / 
did  it. 

Messrs.  Kane,  Joyce,  and  Mulford,  my 
lawyers ;  Mr.  D  wight,  of  the  Daily  Lu- 
minary •  Mr.  Ward,  of  the  Evening  Eye. 

Two,  three  more  chairs,  if  you  please. 
Thank  you. 

The  condemned  cell  has  its  privileges,  you 
see,  like  the  condemned  man.  You  flinch, 
gentlemen.  Face  to  face  with  the  con- 
demned, you  realize  that  yon,  who  justify 
the  law  of  capital  punishment,  are  his  con- 
demners.  I,  in.  my  youth  and  strength,  I, 

2061824 


8         TIIK    \YOMAN   WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

your  brother-freeman,  am  to  be  gagged  and 
bound  by  brute  force,  dragged  to  my  death 
like 'a  beast,  condemned  by  the  jury  that 
represents  you,  murdered  by  the  coward- 
blow  of  the  law  you  uphold  ! 

There  are  thoughts  burning  my  brain, 
there  are  words  scorching  my  lips,  white-hot 
flames  from  the  yawning  hell  called  the 
grave.  Let  them  pass !  /  did  it !  and 
"  An  eye  for  an  eye ! "  "A  tooth  for  a 
tooth  !  "  cries  the  Old  Law,  deafening  Chris- 
tian ears  to  the  "  Vengeance  is  Mine "  of 

O 

the  New. 

Another  visitor  ?  Ah,  you,  Father  !  The 
Catholic  chaplain,  gentlemen ;  may  God 
bless  him  ! 

Now  I  will  tell  my  story.  But  I  must 
begin  at  the  beginning,  and  tell  it  in  my 
own  way. 


II. 

I  AM  thirty  years  old.  My  name  is  Von 
Vost.  My  father  was  of  German  birth  ;  my 
mother  an  Irishwoman  and  a  Catholic.  I 
loved  my  father  best.  There  was  that  sym- 
pathy between  us  which  coexists,  I  think, 
with  striking  physical  resemblance.  He 
was  strong  and  fair,  like  his  father  before 
him.  Both  had  eyes  like  the  blue  Rhem- 
wasser,  and  hair  like  the  sun  on  the  Bicber- 
ich  vinelands.  I,  as  you  see,  am  of  slightly 
darker  type,  owing  to  my  Celtic  mother. 
She  had  the  Irish-gray  eyes  that  go  with 
black  hair  and  lashes,  "  stars  set  in  midnight 
skies,"  my  father  called  them.  Her  cheeks 
and  lips  had  the  flush  of  Killarney's  rose 
upon  them.  In  her  way,  she  was  as  hand- 


10       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

some  as  my  father  in  his ;  otherwise  he  had 
never  loved  her.  For  generations  the  Vost 
women  have  been  famous  for  their  beauty. 
"  As  beautiful  as  a  Von  Vosfs  wife "  is 
still  a  proverb  in  the  Bieberich  district  of 
the  Vaterland. 

My  mother  was  my  father's  second  wife. 
His  first  wife  died — no  matter  how.  She 
was  beautiful — and  light.  She  betrayed  my 
father.  One  morning  she  was  found  face- 
downward  in  the  rushes  where  the  Rhine- 
waves  lap  the  Bieberich  vinelands,  her 
beautiful  hair  unbound,  her  beautiful  white 
breast  bare,  her  hand  still  clutched  on  the 
hilt  of  the  dagger  sheathed  in  her  pulseless 
heart.  She  had  slain  herself  in  an  hour  of 
emotional  delirium,  the  wise  world  said.  So 
let  it  be. 

But  thereafter,  for  my  father,  the  Vater- 
land was  haunted.  In  every  place,  at  every 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       11 

turn,  her  dead  face  confronted  him.  Every 
familiar  scene  became  a  thing  of  dread  and 
horror.  At  last  he  fled,  meeting  my  mother 
on  the  passage  out.  She  was  simple,  health- 
ful, innocent ;  magnetically  attractive,  I 
think,  to  my  father's  shattered  nerves  and 
morbid  mind.  Truth  shone  in  her  clear 
eyes,  purity  blushed  on  her  lips.  Soon, 
love  glowed  in  her  warm  heart.  When  the 
time  was  ripe,  he  told  her  enough  of  his 
story  to  make  her  pity  him ;  not,  unhappily 
for  her,  enough  to  make  her  fear  and  flee 
him.  In  Castle  Garden,  on  the  day  they 
reached  shore,  they  were  married. 

"  For  richer,  for  poorer,"  "  for  better,  for 
worse,"  read  the  marriage-service. 

"  For  poorer,"  "  for  worse,"  it  proved  for 
both.  It  is  a  mistake  for  a  man  to  hamper 
himself  with  a  wife  at  the  outset  of  his  ca- 
reer, as  my  father  learned  to  his  cost. 


12        T1IK    HVAl/.LY    \Y1IO   *T<JOD  BETWKKX. 

"  There  are  women  for  all  men,  but  wives 
only  for  the  rich,11  he  said,  afterward ;  and 
many  a  poor  man  echoes  him. 

Marriage  without  love  is  hell,  and  Pov- 
erty is  Love's  murderer ;  no  merciful  assas- 
sin, swift  and  sure ;  but  a  slow,  cruel,  tor- 
turing strangler-in-the-dark,  within  whose 
skeleton-clutch  Love  curses  love,  and  dies  ! 

My  mother  loved  to  the  end,  like  a  wom- 
an ;  but  my  father  —  you  are  all  men ;  you 
will  understand.  Poverty  makes  saints  of  a 

ti 

few  men,  devils  of  the  many.  He  was  of 
the  many ;  and  the  socialistic  taint  in  the 
Vost  blood,  that  had  impoverished  it  genera- 
tion by  generation  in  the  Monarchy,  still 
impoverished  it  in  the  Republic. 

The  Republic  ?  Faugh  !  Under  the 
humble  name  the  crown  of  Gold,  the  throne 
of  Power,  the  monarch  of  Monopoly,  mas- 
querade like  kings  in  the  cloaks  of  peasants. 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       13 

Freedom !  Fraternity !  Equality !  Hell 
laughs  at  the  lying  Avords,  and  heaven 
abominates  them.  Under  the  stars  and 
stripes,  as  under  the  crown  and  sceptre,  it  is 
the  great  against  the  small,  the  strong 
against  the  weak,  the  high  against  the  low- 
ly, the  rich  against  the  poor  ! 

"  You  are  my  slave  !  "  cries  Wealth  to 
Poverty.  "  Serve,  in  silence  !  " 

God  help  the  slave,  in  service  or  rebel- 
lion !  The  slave  who  serves  is  suffered  to 
exist — not  to  live,  as  a  man,  mind ;  but  to 
exist,  physically,  with  other  brute-beasts  of 
burden.  The  slave  who  rebels  is  lashed  for 
life  to  the  whipping-post.  Upon  the  hope 
of  the  young,  the  despair  of  the  old,  the 
naked  heart  of  the  man,  the  soft  white 
breast  of  the  woman,  the  knout  falls  alike. 
Its  open  wounds,  its  unhealed  scars,  you  may 
see  in  every  slum  and  tenement  and  brothel. 


14       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

"  Drink  is  the  cause  !  "  cry  the  moralists. 

They  lie.  Drink  is  the  effect.  Where 
Rum  is  the  gate  through  which  the  poor 
pass  to  hell,  Despair  is  the  road  that  has 
led  to  it. 


III. 

As  I  have  said,  I  loved  my  father.  In  his 
way,  he  loved  me.  I  was  of  his  flesh,  his 
blood — the  Vost  blood.  He  knew  the  hell- 
flame  that  was  in  it,  and  gloated  as  he 
kindled  it.  Over  his  meerschaum  and  bier, 
week  after  week,  month  after  month,  year 
after  year,  he  whispered,  not  as  my  mother 
supposed,  the  folk-tales  of  the  Vaterland, 
but  tales  of  violence,  of  rapine,  of  blood- 
shed ;  tales  whose  memory  peopled  my 
nights  with  hideous  phantoms,  haunted  my 
dreams  with  the  shrieks  of  the  dying,  and 
the  staring  eyes  of  the  dead.  Only  my 
mother's  prayers,  whispered  over  my  head 
as  a  lullaby  is  crooned  over  a  cradle,  could 
soothe  me. 


16        THE    WOMAX    WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

Those  woman- prayers — how  restfully  they 
contrasted  with  the  oaths  of  the  drinking, 
desperate  men  crowding  our  poor  room  from 
dusk  to  daybreak,  rousing  me  from  my 
childish  sleep  with  their  bloody  threats 
against  the  rich  and  great !  My  father, 
when  he  had  drunk  too  deeply,  would 
snatch  me  from  the  bed,  and  tearing  the 
rosary  from  my  weeping  mother's  hand,  bid 
me  kiss  its  crucifix,  and  swear  thereon  this 
terrible  threefold  oath  : 

1.  To  hate  with  an  undying  hatred,  re- 
lentless as  fate,  strong  as  death,  fierce  as  hell, 
the  proud,  the  rich,  and  tlie  mighty  ! 

2.  To  consecrate  my  body,  my  mind,  my 
heart,  my  life,  my  death,  to  the  cause  of  the 
humble,  tJie  poor,  the  powerless  I 

3.  To  spiU  the  blood,  to  its  last  red  drop, 
oftlie  man,  woman,  or  child  who  should  stand 
between  me  and  the  triumph  of  my  cause. 


THE   WOMAN   WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.        17 

Over  and  over  a^ain,  in    the  "wee   sma' 

O  ' 

hours,"  by  the  light  of  the  kerosene-lamp,  in 
the  close  room  reeking  with  the  fumes  of 
rum  and  tobacco,  I  took  the  oath  ;  while  the 
men  cheered,  and  my  mother  wept,  and 
prayed  heaven  not  to  hear  me. 

"  Hate  loses  causes ;  Love  wins  them  !  " 
she  sobbed.  "  He  shall  spill  no  blood,  my 
white-handed,  white-souled  boy.  You  are 
demons,  not  men,  to  ask  it." 

But  the  words  and  tears  of  a  woman — 
what  are  they  ?  Like  her  prayers,  things 
for  men  to  jeer  at. 

Does  even  God  heed  them  ? 


IV. 

MY  father  died  as  he  had  lived.  My 
mother  and  I  watched  by  his  death -bed 
through  the  long,  chill  night,  into  the  dismal 
daybreak.  His  boon  companions,  the  com- 
panions of  his  pipe  and  beer,  had  deserted 
him.  Only  one  remained,  stretched  like  a 
dog  by  the  fire,  sunk  in  a  drunken  stupor. 

My  father  would  'have  no  priest,  no  min- 
ister. When  my  mother,  in  the  name  of 
God,  implored  him,  his  dying  curse  was  his 
answer.  He  turned  from  her,  and  beckoned 
me.  Under  the  pillow  his  nerveless  hand 
was  fumbling.  It  drew  forth  a  dagger. 
Well  I  knew  the  story  of  the  slender  pointed 
dirk  in  its  shabby  sheath  !  As  I  touched  its 
hilt,  I  shuddered.  It  felt  like  the  chill  dead 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       19 

liand  of  the  fair,  false  woman  whose  blood- 
stained breast  had  been  washed  for  the 
grave  by  the  waves  of  the  blue  Rhine-water. 
As  he  pressed  it  into  my  hand,  he  repeated 
the  threefold  oath.  His  life-breath  passed 
his  lips  with  it. 

"  Swear  it !  "  he  panted — "  '  to  hate — the 
rich  ! — to  live  for — the  humble  ! — to  spill  the 
Uood ' " 

As  he  sank  back,  the  death-rattle  sound- 
ing in  his  throat,  the  light  that  failed  in 
his  glaring  eyes  seemed  to  name  anew  in 
mine.  All  that,  hitherto,  I  had  accepted 
blindly,  in  childish  submission  to  circum- 
stances, I  now  looked  upon  with  mature, 
suddenly  rebellious  eyes.  The  narrow  street 
beneath,  with  its  sunken  cobble-stones,  its 
stagnant  puddles,  its  malodorous  heaps  of 
garbage;  the  opposite  tenement,  with  pitch- 
ers and  pails  littering  its  window-sills,  its 


20     Tim  WOMAN  wuo  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

myriad  clothes-lines  hung  with  ugly  gar- 
ments, its  bare-armed  women  and  unkempt 
children  with  faces  flattened  against  the 
panes;  our  own  little  room,  with  its  single 
small-paned  window  through  which  the  sun- 
less morning  glared  like  a  pallid  ghost,  the 
bare  floor,  the  plaster  \valls,  the  scant,  rude 
furniture  ;  the  drunkard  in  his  brutish  sleep; 
my  mother's  shabby  gown,  whose  rolled-up 
sleeves  revealed  her  once  handsome  arms 
and  hands,  now  coarse  and  mottled  from  toil 
and  exposure ;  my  own  gaunt  frame  grow- 
ing in  all  directions  out  of  my  ill-shaped 
clothes,  my  clumsy  copper  -  toed  boots,  my 
hands,  dingy  and  purple  with  the  chill  in  my 
blood,  and  of  the  brawny,  coarse-veined, 
square -fingered  mould  that  branded  me  the 
son  of  the  toiler ;  above  all,  the  face  of  the 
man  on  his  death-bed,  the  strong,  fair  Teu- 
ton face  lined  now  with  the  marks  of  evil 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       21 

passions,  surly  and  gross,  swollen  and  pur- 
ple still  from  recent  debauch,  in  spite  of  the 
pallor  of  death,  the  rigor  of  dissolution  al- 
ready setting  their  fatal  seal  upon  it — in  all, 
Poverty  in  its  nude  hideousness,  burst  upon 
me — Poverty  that  means  not  the  fault,  nor 
even  the  misfortune,  of  the  poor;  but  the 
wrong  of  the  monopolist,  the  yoke  of  the  op- 
pressor, the  blight,  the  curse,  the  damnation 
of  the  oppressed  ! 

Over  my  sickened  soul  surged  a  wave  of 
passionate  pity  for  the  dying  man  before  me. 
And  the  world  held  hosts  of  just  such  pite- 
ous victims — my  father  was  but  one  ! 

My  mother's  rosary,  placed  there  by  her 
pious  hands,  lay  upon  his  breast.  Impul- 
sively, I  caught  it  up.  The  oath  so  often 
sealed  by  my  childish  kiss  upon  it,  leaped 
once  more  to  my  lips. 

The  brown  beads  jingled  against  one  an- 


22       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

other.  The  sound  roused  my  father  from 
his  death  -  lethargy — called  him  back  from 
the  brink  of  the  dark  valley  where  all  go, 
none  return.  With  the  sudden  strength  of 
ebbing  life's  last  moment,  his  pale  lips  spoke. 

"  Swear  !  "  he  gasped,  in  a  hollow  voice 
that  the  grave  already  muffled — "  swear  '  to 
spill  the  Hood  of  man,  woman ' ' 

"  I  swear  it ! "  I  cried ;  but  he  did  not 
hear  me. 

On  that  last  word — "  woman" — his  lips 
shut  over.  He  fell  back,  dead. 


V. 

I  HAD  gone  to  my  father's  death -bed  a 
boy.  I  left  it  a  man.  My  mother,  with 
love's  acuteness,  saw  the  change  ;  but  wheth- 
er it  boded  good  or  ill,  even  her  love  could 
not  divine.  She  took  her  doubt  to  her 
priest  on  the  Sunday  following  my  father's 
burial. 

The  priest  was  a  good  old  man,  with  kind 
eyes  and  a  gentle  voice.  I  listened  respect- 
fully when  at  her  request  he  came  to  talk  to 
me ;  but  I  answered  not  a  word.  My  si- 
lence puzzled  him.  More  than  once  I  caught 
his  keen  eyes  scrutinizing  me  from  under 
their  shaggy  brows. 

"  What  the  boy  needs  is  education,"  he 
said  to  my  mother,  at  parting ;  "  education 


24       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  11 KT  \YEKN. 

for  soul,  as  well  as  brain.  Send  him  to  our 
parochial  school  for  a  few  years.  God  will 
not  let  you  starve,  meanwhile." 

"  We  shall  not  starve,"  she  said,  proudly. 

She  was  capable,  industrious,  and  thrifty, 
and  had  learned  fine  needle-work  in  an  Irish 
convent — such  needle-work  as  cloistered  ves- 
tals do,  whose  white  hearts  stitch  with  their 
threads  the  altar  linens.  The  latter  years 
of  my  father's  life  had  been  one  long  ca- 
rouse. The  sale  of  her  delicate  handiwork 
had  alone  kept  the  roof  over  our  heads,  the 
wolf  from  our  door. 

"  We  shall  not  starve,"  she  repeated. 
"  He  shall  go  to  your  school,  my  Father." 

Then  I  spoke.  I  can  hear  my  boyish 
voice  now,  strong  yet  tremulous,  defiant 
yet  timid ;  the  voice  in  which  the  keys  of 
childhood  and  manhood  both  jarred  and 
blended. 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       25 

"  I  shall  not  go  to  your  school,"  I  said. 
"  I  will  have  State  education,  or  none.  You 
educate  the  poor  exclusively.  You  teach 
the  creed  of  one  church.  The  State  edu- 
cates poor  and  rich  alike,  and  teaches  the 
American  creed  of  universal  brotherhood. 
I  will  beo-in  even  as  I  shall  end — on  com- 

<D 

mon  ground,  on  equal  footing,  with  my  gen- 
eration." 

"  My  son,"  said  the  old  priest,  gently, 
"  there  is  no  common  ground,  no  equal  foot- 
ing, save  before  God  alone." 

Were  his  words  true  or  false  ?  My  brain 
is  whirling.  I  do  not  know. 


VI. 

MY  mother  wept,  but  she  let  me  have  my 
way.  I  was  a  good  son  to  her,  in  spite  of 
the  tears  I  caused  her.  If  I  did  not  go  to 
her  church,  neither  did  I  go  to  the  bar- room  ; 
if  I  earned  neither  the  bread  I  ate,  nor  the 
clothes  I  wore,  neither  did  I  squander  one  pen- 
ny of  her  hard  earnings  upon  folly  or  pleas- 
ure. Day  and  night,  night  and  day,  I  pored 
over  books,  books,  books  —  impelled  by  lust 
not  for  knowledge,  but  for  the  power  knowl- 
edge alone  gives.  The  contest  to  which  my 
arms  were  consecrated  was  a  mental  con- 
test, not  a  physical  one,  though  fools  and 
knaves  swear  otherwise.  By  nature  I  was 
well  equipped  for  my  mission,  with  a  quick 
mind,  an  eloquent  tongue,  an  impressive 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       27 

presence.  One  can  afford  to  speak  with- 
out false  modesty  on  the  brink  of  his  open 
grave. 

With  education,  my  equipment  was  com- 
plete. Not  with  the  education  of  books, 
however,  though  these  included  the  works 
of  Rousseau,  Fichte,  Bakunin,  St.  Simon, 
Carlyle,  Fourier,  Mill,  Spencer,  Comte, 
Marx,  Tolstoi,  up  to  our  own  Henry  George. 
These  were  but  the  beginning.  My  intelli- 
gence told  me  that  I  must  know  men,  wom- 
en, the  world,  life,  before  I  could  hope  to 
reform  them. 

I  studied  these  in  the  palaces,  and  in  the 
prisons;  in  the  theatres,  and  in  the  hospi- 
tals ;  in  the  factories,  and  in  club-windows ; 
on  the  boulevards,  and  in  the  gin-shops.  I 
trod  the  highwaj^s  of  the  rich,  and  the  by- 
ways of  the  poor ;  followed  the  saint  to  the 
shrine,  and  the  sinner  to  the  slums ;  watched 


28       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

the  belle  as  she  swept  to  her  carriage,  and 
dogged  the  slave -girl  from  the  sweater's 
shop  to  the  dance-hall,  and  to  the  midnight- 
hell  to  which  the  dance  •  hall  leads.  I 
studied  the  young  blood  sipping  his  wrines, 
and  the  tramp  as  he  drained  stale  beer  with 
his  bloated  mouth  to  the  kesf.  I  studied  the 

O 

work  of  the  politician,  and  the  play  of  his 
silent  partner,  the  financier.  I  studied  the 
dowager  at  her  dinner,  and  the  work-woman 
as  she  starved  that  her  child  mi^ht  eat.  I 

o 

studied  the  heiress  in  her  box  at  the  opera, 
and  her  sister  outside  on  the  pavement — the 
girl  of  the  street.  On  land,  on  sea,  in  the 
Old  World's  Kingdoms,  in  the  New  World's 
Republic,  I  stood  at  Poverty's  cradle,  toiled 
with  Labor,  caught  the  crumbs  of  the  feast 
of  Capital,  followed  Wealth  to  its  splendid 
tomb.  Just  how  I  did  it,  no  matter.  The 
end  is  the  question,  not  the  means.  When 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       29 

the  education  of  Life  supplemented  the 
education  of  books,  I  was  ripe  for  my  mis- 
sion. 

In  the  meantime  my  mother  died. 


VII. 

I  REGRETTED  her,  after  a  fashion.  There 
is  something  about  a  woman,  I  think,  which 
a  man  misses  when  she  is  gone,  though  he 
may  have  been  scarcely  sensible  of  her 
presence.  Her  little  brown  rosary  was 
buried  with  her.  I  felt  a  pang  as  the  coffin- 
lid  shut  upon  it.  Somehow  it  seemed  as- 
sociated not  only  with  my  past,  but  with  my 
future ;  since  all  that  was  to  come  after  was 
but  the  consequence  of  the  oath,  sealed  by 
my  kiss  on  its  crucifix — which  had  gone  be- 
fore. But  of  my  oath  I  did  not  need  the 
crucifix  to  remind  me.  Of  the  lesson  of 
hate,  my  father  had  taught  me  the  begin- 
ning. Of  Life — the  world,  men  and  women 
— I  learned  it  to  its  end. 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       31 

Again  and  again,  in  the  impatience  of 
youth,  I  had  resolved  to  enter  upon  my 
social  mission,  but  a  mystic  something  had 
held  me  back.  As  I  turned  from  the  grave 
in  which  my  mother  was  laid  to  sleep,  I  was 
suddenly  conscious  that  the  restraining  in- 
fluence was  removed.  I  felt  myself  not  only 
freed,  but  pushed  forward.  I  pressed  on 
blindly,  knowing  neither  why,  nor  whither. 
Suddenly  I  found  myself  at  the  door  of  the 
house  in  which  my  father  had  died. 


VIII. 

THE  neighborhood,  as  was  but  natural, 
was  changed — changed,  which  seems  less 
credible,  for  the  worse.  The  street  was 
dirtier,  the  tenements  shabbier,  the  dayliglit 
paler.  Between  the  roofs  of  the  adjacent 
avenue  sped  the  Elevated.  The  shops  about 
were  of  a  lower  grade ;  the  rum-shops  in- 
creased in  number.  The  steps  upon  which  I 
had  played  in  my  boyhood  were  notched 
and  broken.  The  remnant  of  a  door-plate  I 
remembered,  dangled  by  one  rusty  nail. 

I  rang  the  bell.  A  dark-eyed  girl  an- 
swered it.  The  garret  was  empty,  she  told 
me,  in  answer  to  my  question.  I  told  her  I 
would  take  it,  before  I  asked  her  the  price. 
My  mother  had  amassed  me  a  snug  little  sum 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       33 

by  her  savings.  My  heart  felt  warm,  where 
the  bank-notes  lay.  I  had  drawn  them  that 
morning.  The  girl  smiled  as  I  followed  her, 
and  looked  back  at  me,  her  dark  eyes  flash- 
ing with  sudden  brightness  over  her  stooped 
shoulders.  She  was  young,  and  nature  is 
nature.  I  was  a  new  interest,  because  a  new 
possibility,  in  her  narrow  life. 

Her  mother  lay  in  the  hall,  in  a  drunken 
sleep.  She  had  a  large  coarse  face,  framed 
in  dishevelled  hair.  A  shapeless  wrapper  of 
striped  blue  calico  covered  her.  Over  her 
heaving  bust  her  hands  were  folded — strong, 
hard  hands,  purple  with  stagnant  blood.  My 
voice  roused  her,  and  her  hands  unfolded. 
Through  a  rent  in  her  wrapper  one  gross 
nude  breast  was  exposed.  The  girl  flushed 
scarlet,  and  stooping,  deftly  pinned  the  rent. 
The  woman's  bleared  eyes  opened.  With  a 
muttered  oath  she  lifted  her  hand,  and  struck 


34       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

the  girl  across  the  face.  It  was  a  brutal 
blow.  I  could  fancy  the  sting  and  burn  of 
it,  but  the  girl  said  nothing,  neither  did  I.  I 
handed  the  woman  a  roll  of  dollars,  which 
she  clutched  greedily,  and  went  up-stairs.  I 
heard  the  girl's  voice,  pained  yet  patient,  ex- 
plaining as  I  ascended. 

As  I  entered  the  room  in  which  my  father 
had  died,  I  felt  his  unseen  presence  in  it. 
The  room  seemed  smaller  than  in  my  youth, 
the  walls  closer,  the  ceiling  lower.  I  threw 
up  the  window,  and  turned  to  the  bed.  It 
was  soiled  and  disordered,  evidently  un- 
touched since  the  previous  lodger  had  left  it. 
I  looked  at  it  long  and  intently,  till  I  had 
rid  myself  of  the  fancy  that  my  father, 
ghastly  in  death,  still  lay  upon  it. 

The  hearth  upon  which  the  drunken 
watcher  had  slept  was  littered  witli  rags  and 
paper.  I  missed  my  mother's  stove  and 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       35 

dresser,  the  many  womanly  knick-knacks  with 
which  she  had  made  even  that  poor  room  a 
home.  A  wash-stand,  teetering  on  three 
legs  under  the  weight  of  a  cracked  bowl  and 
broken-nosed  pitcher ;  a  square  table,  and  a 
few  cheap  chairs,  furnished  the  room. 

I  drew  a  chair  to  the  window  and  bowed 
my  head  on  its  sill.  My  childhood,  my  boy- 
hood, my  mother's  face,  were  before  me.  Al- 
most for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  a  soft  chord 
vibrated  within  me.  In  that  room  whose 
walls  had  echoed  with  my  unholy  oath  of 
hate,  where  my  father  had  died  with  threats 
of  bloodshed  reeking  on  his  lips,  a  long-for- 
gotten word  of  my  mother's  recurred  to  me : 
"  Hate  loses  causes :  Love  ivins  them  !  " 

Why  did  the  gentle  words  haunt  me  ? 
Premonitory  of  what  was  to  follow,  they 
issued  like  warning  wraiths  love  -  loosened 
from  death-locked  mother-lips. 


IX. 

I  WAS  roused  from  my  reverie  by  the  rustle 
of  the  girl's  dress  behind  me.  She  had  en- 
tered without  knocking,  clean  sheeting  on  her 
arm.  On  her  cheek  was  the  blood-red  scar 
of  her  mother's  blow.  I  looked  her  over 
from  head  to  foot,  as  I  had  never  before 
looked  at  a  woman — not  as  a  man  looks  at 
the  one  fair  woman  he  loves  ;  but  as  I  fancy 
my  father  had  looked  at  my  mother,  the 
fresh-skinned  Irish  girl  with  the  pure,  true 
heart,  as  his  haunted  eyes  shuddered  from 
the  phantom-face  staring  at  him  from  the 
dank  Rhine-rushes.  Her  brown  eyes  were 
like  a  dog's — patient  and  faithful.  Her  red 
mouth  drooped  at  the  corners.  It  seemed  to 
accent  the  pathos  of  the  blood-red  scar. 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       37 

She  was  not  short,  though  her  head,  as  we 
stood  together,  had  barely  reached  my  shoul- 
der ;  but  neither  was  she — though  she  looked 
as  if  she  should  have  been — tall.  She  was 
like  a  young  tree  stunted.  Her  figure  was 
neither  slender  nor  plump,  but  her  move- 
ments were  lithe,  in  spite  of  a  halt  in  her  gait 
which  impeded  them.  My  eyes  followed 
her.  I  think  she  was  not  handsome  —  I 
am  not  sure.  I  know  only  that  she  touched 
me.  As  she  passed  within  reach  I  pulled 
her  to  me  and  kissed  her.  Her  drooping 
mouth  curled  upward.  The  blood-red  scar 
burned  redder,  but  I  think  it  no  longer  hurt 
her.  She  told  me,  in  answer  to  my  question, 
that  her  name  was  Nan. 

That  night  I  slept  the  deep,  dreamless, 
unbroken  sleep  of  a  child.  As  I  passed  down 
the  stairs  in  the  morning,  Nan  came  hastening 
out  of  the  lower  room,  smiling  at  me  expect- 


33       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

antly.  I  brushed  by  her  without  a  word. 
The  impulse  of  the  day  before  had  been  a 
weakness.  With  a  new  day,  my  strength 
had  returned.  I  knew  then  that  the  day  was 
to  be,  even  as  1  know  now  that  it  was,  a  fate- 
ful one.  When  I  had  had  my  simple  break- 
fast of  German  bread  and  coffee,  I  hesitated 
for  a  moment  in  the  doorway  of  the  little 
shop,  and  then  turned  up  the  street  toward 
the  bustling  avenue.  The  mystic  force  was 
again  impelling  me,  why  or  whither,  I  knew 
not.  I  knew  only  that  I  must  obey  it. 

From  the  steeple  of  the  church  where  my 
mother  had  knelt  each  night  and  morning, 
eight  slow  strokes  sounded,  as  I  started  on 
my  walk.  As  I  returned,  the  eight  slow 
strokes  resounded.  Twenty-four  hours  had 
elapsed  between  them — hours  in  which  I  had 
tramped  the  city — the  rich  city,  the  poor 
city — my  footsteps  grinding,  grinding,  grind- 


THE  WOtfAlT  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       39 

ing  like  iron  wheels  through  my  brain. 
When  they  ceased,  at  last,  the  work  of  the 
wheels  was  done.  The  seething  impressions, 
thoughts,  sentiments,  which  were  the  aggre- 
gate random  mental  accumulation  of  }7ears, 
had  been  moulded  into  definite  shape.  The 
goal  toward  which  the  mystic  force  had  im- 
pelled me  was  now  in  sight. 

Under  the  tenement  was  a  small  stationer's 
shop.  Like  one  in  a  dream,  I  entered  it,  and 
snatching  up  a  ream  of  legal-cap  paper, 
pushed  it  toward  the  clerk. 

"  Pens,"  I  demanded,  unconsciously  point- 
ing to  a  case  of  gold  pens  set  in  the  show- 
case. 

"  Gold  ?  "  he  asked,  doubtfully. 

"  Hell-fire,  no  !  "  I  cried.  "  Keep  your 
gold  for  the  rich.  The  poor  man's  pen  is  of 
steel — like  his  sword." 

He  looked  at  me  with  fear  in  his  eyes. 


40       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

"  Ink  ?  "  lie  asked,  tremulously,  holding  a 
bottle  toward  me. 

"  Yes,  red  ink,"  I  cried—"  blood-red  !  " 

His  hands  trembled  as  he  made  my  change. 
He  was  an  old  man,  and  alone.  Evidently 
he  thought  me  a  murderous  maniac.  As  I 
shut  the  door  behind  me,  he  sprang  over  the 
counter,  and  locked  it.  I  passed  Nan  on  the 
stairs ;  she  cried  out  as  she  saw  me.  I  un- 
derstood why,  as  I  glanced  into  the  cracked 
glass  hung  over  the  teetering  wash-stand. 
My  face  was  white  and  rigid — ghastly  as  the 
face  of  the  dead. 

But  the  eyes — ah  !  the  eyes  were  living  ! 


X. 


FOR  three  days  and  nights,  as  I  know  now, 
I  wrote  without  a  pause,  conscious  of  nothing 
save  that  the  mystic  force  impelled  me  to 
write  on.  I  was  dimly  conscious  of  a  loaf  of 
bread,  a  jug  of  milk  or  beer,  placed  beside 
me — of  a  lamp  set  before  me  as  the  days 
darkened,  which  I  pushed  away  with  impa- 
tient hand,  as  the  sun  of  redawning  morning 
put  its  pallid  flame  to  shame.  Thus  went 
the  days  and  nights. 

As  the  fourth  day  dawned,  rny  pen  fell 
from  my  hand.  Its  work  was  finished.  It 
was  the  key  that  had  unlocked  all  that  had 
been  pent  within  me  for  years  and  years. 
The  seething  waters  of  my  soul,  dammed 


42       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

over-long,  had  forced  their  dyke  at  last ; 
bursting  forth  in  mighty  billows  which  I 
had  only  to  record  as  they  flashed  by. 
Wealth  was  the  leviathan  that  lurked  be- 
neath them ;  Poverty  the  prey  that  drifted, 
shrieking,  to  its  fate. 

All,  in  relation  to  vital  social  questions, 
that  I  had  accumulated  by  experience,  obser- 
vation, study,  hearsay — all  that  I  had  assim- 
ilated by  long  and  profound  thought ;  all 
that  I  had  felt,  hoped,  feared,  loved,  hated- 
all  my  pity  for  the  oppressed,  my  scorn  for 
the  oppressors  —  all  my  scathing  wrath 
against  Capital  the  wronger,  all  my  fierce 
desire  to  right  Labor  the  wronged — were 
inscribed  in  blood  •  red  characters  before 
me.  Without  pause,  doubt,  error,  erasure,  I 
had  written.  Tongue  could  not  have  spoken, 
even  as  pen  had  not  flown  fast  enough,  to 
keep  pace  with  the  inspiration  that  impelled 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       43 

it.  I  had  not  been  the  author,  but  only  the 
transcriber  of  the  burning  words  before  me. 
As  I  have  said,  my  work  was  finished.  My 
pen  dropped  from  my  hand. 

I  awoke  to  consciousness  of  Nan's  face, 
womanly -tender,  bending  over  me. 

"I  thought  you  was  dead,"  she  said. 
"  You're  only  starvin'.  See  ?  " 

She  pointed  to  the  table.  Milk  and 
bread  and  beer  stood  there  untouched,  side 
by  side  with  the  smoked  lamp.  For  three 
days  and  nights  I  had  not  eaten,  drunk,  or 
slept.  I  seized  the  stale  loaf,  and  gnawed  it 
greedily.  She  caught  up  the  pitcher,  and 
disappeared,  returning  with  it  filled  with 
foaming  beer.  I  drank  the  generous  draught 
to  the  last  drop.  Then  I  fell  back,  and  to 
sleep,  simultaneously.  When  I  awoke  it 
was  twenty-two  hours  later,  eight  in  the 
morning,  by  the  church  clock. 


44       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

I  rose,  and  caught  up  the  manuscript, 
piled  as  I  had  left  it,  on  the  little  table. 
Unwashed,  unshaved,  with  my  garments 
creased  and  rumpled  by  my  long  sleep  in 
them,  I  dashed  from  the  obscure  street  into 
one  of  the  great  thoroughfares.  Block  after 
block  I  walked  past  the  double  file  of  prom- 
enaders,  well  -  groomed  men  on  their  way 
down  to  Wall  Street;  tailor-made  women  on 
their  constitutional  morning  walk ;  middle- 
class  folk  of  both  sexes,  going  humbly,  al- 
most apologetically,  their  unobtrusive  way ; 
belated  working-men  and  women  bound  for 
store  and  workshop ;  poor  girls  and  boys 
hurrying  to  yards  and  factories,  while  their 
richer  brothers  and  sisters  sauntered  to 
school  and  college ;  past  trucks  and  cars  and 
carriages  on  one  side,  past  glittering  shops, 
great  and  small,  iipon  the  other,  on — on — on 
—till  the  sign  of  a  famous  publishing-house 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       45 

caught  my  eyes.  Without  hesitation  I 
opened  the  door,  and  stepped  in. 

A  dapper  young  clerk  addressed  me  be- 
fore I  had  shut  the  door  behind  me. 

"  What  is  it  you  wish  ?  "  his  lips  said,  but 
I  did  not  hear  them. 

He  was  looking  me  over  doubtfully,  and 
the  language  of  his  eyes  was  what  I  heard. 

"  We  have  nothing  for  you,"  they  were 
saying,  mutely.  Though  the  scornful  words 
were  unspoken,  I  heard  them  hissing  behind 
his  lips. 

"  I  wish  to  publish  a  book,  at  once,"  I 
heard  myself  saying.  "  I  have  the  manu- 
script with  me." 

He  laughed  —  a  low,  taunting,  scornful 
laugh,  and  once  more  looked  me  over,  from 
head  to  foot.  That  was  his  answer. 

At  the  same  instant  I  saw  him  dodge, 
and  spring  back  out  of  my  reach.  I  did 


46       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

not  know  that  I  had  lifted  my  hand,  until 
it  canie  down  with  a  crash  upon  the  show- 
case. 

As  I  was  turning  away,  a  tall,  handsome 
man  of  the  aristocrat- type,  entered  the  store 
and  greeted  me  courteously.  Then  he 
turned  to  the  clerk. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  he  asked. 

I  went  forward  to  meet  him,  instinctively 
attracted  to  him.  He  was  a  gentleman,  of 
the  born  kind.  His  sensitive  face  was  fair 
and  delicate,  and  exquisitely  refined  in  feat- 
ure. In  his  eyes  was  a  glorified  look,  as  if 
they  had  seen  heaven.  I  learned,  afterward, 
that  their  divine  radiance  was  the  light  of 
a  great  love. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  he  repeated. 

"  A  poor  devil  of  an  author,  of  the  de- 
lirium-tremens  type,"  I  heard  the  clerk 
whisper,  in  aside. 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       47 

The  man  did  not  smile.  He  only  looked 
at  me  with  his  radiant  eyes. 

"  I  wish  to  publish  a  book.  I  have  the 
manuscript  with  me,"  I  repeated,  helplessly. 

He  took  the  manuscript  in  his  soft,  white, 
gentle  hands. 

"  If  you  will  leave  this  with  me,"  he  said, 
"  our  readers  shall  judge  of  its  merits.  We 
are  over  -  supplied  with  manuscripts,  just 
now,  however.  Can  you  give  us  a  month  ?  " 

"  A — month  ?  "  I  repeated,  incredulously. 

He  looked  at  me  compassionately — at  me; 
not,  as  his  clerk's  hard  eyes  had  looked, 
over  me. 

"  Ah !  "  he  said,  involuntarily.  Then, 
with  a  sudden  kindly  smile,  "  we  will  make 
the  month  a  week." 

That  week  of  waiting !  I  could  never 
have  endured  it 

Save  for — Nan  ! 


XL 

As  I  re-entered  the  publishing-house,  a 
week  later,  the  dapper  clerk  greeted  me 
with  a  respectful  bow. 

"  I  was  told  to  show  you  upstairs,"  he  said. 

I  followed  him  into  the  elevator,  out  of  it 
again,  through  aisles  enclosed  in  solid  walls 
of  books,  toward  a  room  in  the  rear  of  the 
building.  On  the  threshold  the  clerk 
paused,  knocking  at  the  half-open  door. 

"  Come  in,"  said  a  voice  I  recognized. 

The  clerk  stood  back  respectfully.  I  en- 
tered the  room.  The  owner  of  the  famil- 
iar voice  stepped  forward  with  outstretched 
hand. 

«  Mr. ?  "  he  inquired. 

"  Von  Vost,"  I  responded. 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       49 

"  A  good  name,  a  noble  name,"  exclaimed 
an  old  man  seated  at  a  table  in  the  centre 
of  the  room.  "  And  there's  something  in 
a  name,  Shakespeare  notwithstanding.  I'd 
avow  it  to  his  ghost.  And  a  propos,  let  me 
be  the  first  to  congratulate  you  not  only  on 
your  name,  but  upon  your  work.  It  is  orig- 
inal, striking,  stupendous — a  work  of  genius, 
my  boy,  a  work  of  genius."  * 

"  Mr.  Castleman,  our  senior  member — fa- 
miliarly known  as  the  Enthusiast,"  explained 
my  friend,  with  a  smile.  "  Our  general  au- 
tocrat, Mr.  Grifton,  otherwise  known  as  the 
Cynic.  Last  and  least,  myself  —  distin- 
guished, in  the  firm,  as  the  Happy  Medium ; 
but  known  elsewhere  by  the  family  name  of 
-Harold." 

"  When  will  my  book  be  published  ?  "  I 
asked,  curtly.  Their  easy  persiflage  embar- 
rassed me.  I  felt  ill  at  ease,  out  of  place,  at 


50       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  JiKTWKKN. 

a  disadvantage.  I  resented  the  logical  infer- 
ence that  the  advantage  was  on  their  side. 

"  The  proverbial  impatience  of  youthful 
authors,"  groaned  the  Cynic.  "  Not  so  fast, 
young  man.  There  are  several  questions  to 
be  discussed  before  the  matter  of  publication 
can  be  considered  at  all." 

"It  is  a  work  of  genius,"  repeated  the 
senior  member,  with  a  thump  on  the  table. 
"  After  the  reports  of  our  readers,  I  sat  up 
all  night  to  read  it.  You'd  freeze  the  fires 
of  Dante's  *  Inferno,'  Grifton,  with  that  con- 
foundedly cold,  cnutious,  critical  manner  of 
yours.  Why  not  speak  out,  and  confess  to 
the  lad  that  you're  big  D'd  glad  to  publish 
his  book  ?  If  you're  not,  I  am,  by  the  Im- 
mortals !  " 

"  I  believe,"  said  Grifton,  appealing  to 
Harold,  "  that  I  am  the  business  manager  I  " 

"Business  be  hanged  !  "  cried  the  Enthu- 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       51 

siast.  "/"—with  significant  emphasis — "/ 
have  a  brain  which  comprehends,  a  soul 
which  sympathizes  with,  a  heart  which  beats 
in  unison  with,  genius." 

Harold  rose  with  a  smile — Harold,  my 
friend.  Even  then,  when  I  had  seen  him 
only  twice,  had  felt  the  cordial  pressure  of 
his  hand  but  once,  the  first  man,  the  last 
man,  I  have  called — my  friend. 

"  My  dear  Enthusiast,"  he  said,  "  I  move 
that  you  and  I  desert  the  field,  and  leave  it 
to  the  Cynic,  and  genius." 

"  Not  for  Dickens ! "  responded  the  ad- 
dressed, with  emphasis,  "  until  I  have  drunk 
confusion  to  the  one  and  success  to  the  other, 
in  old  port  I  brought  with  me  to-day,  in 
honor  of  this  occasion  !  " 

I  felt  no  elation  at  the  tribute  ;  the  blood 
did  not  quicken  in  my  veins ;  my  heart 
throbbed  no  whit  faster. 


52       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

"  I  am  glad  that  my  book  pleases  you,"  I 
said,  "  inasmuch  as  its  publication  is  thus 
insured.  Otherwise  your  praises  are  noth- 
ing to  me.  My  ambition  is  not  a  personal 
one— I— I " 

The  words  of  passionate  allegiance  to  my 
cause  which  I  had  fain  uttered,  faltered  on 
my  lips.  The  fumes  of  the  rare  old  wine 
in  my  nostrils,  its  flavor  in  my  mouth, 
its  glow  in  my  veins — the  costly  glass  in  my 
hand,  so  fragile  that  a  breath  might  break 
it — the  luxurious  room  with  its  inlaid  floor, 
its  dusky  rugs,  its  languorous  chairs,  its 
handsome  decorations — above  all,  the  prox- 
imity not  as  superiors,  but  as  equals,  of 
these  cultured,  courteous  gentlemen,  gave  me 
my  first  insight  into  the  charm,  the  fascina- 
tion, the  sensuous  spell,  the  temptation,  of 
wealth  and  all  that  the  golden  term  implies. 

Did  I  swerve,  for  one  brief  instant,  from 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       53 

the  path  that  I  had  sworn  to  tread  ?  Did  I 
falter,  in  the  moment  of  temptation,  in  my 
allegiance  to  my  cause  ? 

If  I  did,  my  weakness  wras  short-lived. 
Even  in  that  instant,  all  the  wrong,  the  in- 
justice, the  hopeless  struggle,  the  bitter  mis- 
ery of  poverty,  flashed  before  me.  As  the 
events  of  a  lifetime  are  recalled  in  the 
drowning  man's  last  moment  of  conscious- 
ness, so  every  horrible  phase  of  poverty  that 
I  had  ever  seen  or  heard  of,  flashed  simul- 
taneously, yet  clearly,  before  my  mental 
eyes. 

With  an  oath,  I  hurled  down  the  glass 
whose  siren-draught,  in  that  moment  of 
madness,  had  tempted  me  to  treachery.  It 
shattered  into  a  thousand  pieces,  which 
gleamed  like  chips  of  diamonds  on  the  floor. 
The  wine  trickled  in  a  glowing  stream  to 
one  of  the  costly  rugs,  and  settled  in  a  pool 


54       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

beside  it,  ruddy  and  warm  with  the  life- 
blood  of  the  poor  whose  bruised  feet  tread 
the  wine-press  that  the  sated  lips  of  the  rich 
may  drink  and  drain.  I  met  with  defiant 
eyes  the  eyes  of  the  men  before  me.  The 
cold  surprise  of  the  Cynic,  the  simple  con- 
sternation of  the  Enthusiast — not  even  the 
tender  pity  in  Harold's  shining  eyes,  hushed 
my  wild  \vords. 

"  I  hate  you,"  I  hissed  behind  clenched 
teeth.  "  I  hate  your  rich  old  wine,  your 
delicate  glasses,  your  sensuous  surroundings. 
I  hate  everything  that  they,  even  as  I  hate 
everyone  that  you,  represent.  If  you  have 
read  my  book,  you  know  what  I  am.  If  you 
do  not  know,  I  will  tell  you.  I  am  one  sworn 
by  the  death  of  Christ  and  the  death  of 
Christ's  creature,  to  hunt  you  down,  to  track 
you  to  your  gilded  palaces,  to  overthrow 
your  thrones,  to  tear  away  your  crowns,  to 


THE    WOMAN   WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.        55 

make  a  mock  of  your  vaunted  power — to  hurl 
you  down,  down,  down,  to  hunger  and  cold 
and  nakedness  ! — to  brand  your  wives  as  the 
slaves  of  the  poor  who  have  been  their  ser- 
vants, to  force  your  daughters  into  the  arms 
of  the  men  whom  the  hems  of  their  dain- 
ty garments  now  scorn  to  brush.  Revenge 
first,  Reform  after  !  And  as  I  have  sworn, 
so  the  great  masses  I  represent  habe  sworn 
with  me.  I  am  one,  they  are  millions  !  Be 
warned  !  be  warned  !  Tfie  masses  against 
the  classes !  this  is  our  war-cry.  Our  arms 
are  rapine  and  murder !  Our  flag,  the  black 
flag  of  death  !  " 

As  I  dashed  from  the  room  and  groped 
blindly  through  the  book-shadowed  aisles  be- 
yond it,  the  Enthusiast's  voice  floated  to  me. 

"  I  told  you  he  was  a  genius,"  he  cried,  tri- 
umphantly, "  but,"  with  gentle  regret,  "  that 
prime  old  port " 


56       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BET  W KEN. 

"  If  genius  is  indeed  insanity,  I  admit  the 
genius,"  responded  the  Cynic.  "  He's  mad- 
der than  a  March  hare." 

"  Delirium  tremens  !  Didn't  I  say  so  ?  ' 
chuckled  the  eaves-dropping  clerk. 

Only  one  voice  was  silent.  He  alone  said 
no  word  against  me — Harold,  my  friend  ! 
my  friend ! 


XII. 

came  in  upon  me  as  I  was  packing 
my  last  poor  possession  into  my  shabby 
satchel,  some  hours  later.  When  she  saw 
what  I  was  doing,  she  drew  a  quick,  sharp, 
sobbing  breath,  and  pressed  her  hand  to  her 
breast. 

"You're  goin'  away — "  she  gasped,  "goin' 
away  ?  " 

I  stared  at  her  stupidly.  For  a  moment  I 
had  forgotten  that  she  had  a  claim  upon  me. 
In  that  moment  her  mother  appeared  in  the 
doorway. 

"  Goin'  away  ?  "  she  repeated.  "  Not  till 
I've  had  a  word  wi'  my  fine  gentleman. 

«/  O 

IVe    been    drunk,    onct,  or    twict,    but   not 
blind    drunk.      Put   that   in   yer   pipe,  an' 


58       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

smoke  it.  Wot  about  my  girl,  I  say?  Wot 
about  my  girl  ?  " 

"  Mother  !  "  cried  Nan,  and  hid  her  face 
in  her  hands. 

From  the  street  below  sounded  the  rattle 
of  wheels,  the  snap  of  whips,  the  cries  of  a 
passing  vender.  On  the  stairs  a  child 
screamed  lustily.  In  the  adjoining  room  a 
drunkard  was  beating  his  wife.  The  thud 
of  the  blows  reached  us,  and  her  stifled  sobs 
and  entreaties.  Yet,  though  my  ear  heard 
all,  I  was  conscious  only  of  one  soft  sound, 
the  sound  of  Nan's  true  heart,  beating. 

"  Will  you  come  with  me  ?"  I  asked  her. 

I  did  not  wait  for  her  answer.  Her  radi- 
ant face  foretold  it.  She  followed  me,  dog- 
like,  as,  without  a  word,  I  strode  from  the 
squalid  room. 

Her  mother's  voice  followed  us. 

"Make  him  marry  yer,  Nan,"   she  cried. 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       59 

"  No  traipsin'  back  ter  me  wi'  his  brat  at 
yer  breast.  Make  him  marry  yer." 

"Do  you  wish  me  to  marry  you?"  I 
asked,  as  we  walked  from  the  door. 

"  I — I'd  like  ter  have  it  ter  say  as  I'm  an 
honest  woman,"  she  faltered.  "  If — if " 

I  understood  the  womanly  yearning,  the 
yearning  of  potential  motherhood,  that  the 
faltering  words  failed  to  express. 

"  You  shall  be  an  honest  woman,"  I  said. 
"  I  will  get  the  license,  and  we  will  be 
married  to-day." 

"  To-day  ?  "  she  echoed. 

She  scowled  down  at  her  poor  gown ;  then 
tore  off  her  hat,  and  twirled  it  about  on  her 
hand  childishly,  walking  bareheaded  by  my 
side. 

"  I  hain't  got  no  weddin'  dress,  nor  no 
cake,  nor  —  nor  nuthin  !  "  she  objected. 
"  When  I  marry,  I  want  to  be  married  sty- 


60       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

lish,  like  Mamie  Murphy  married  Joe  Cas- 
sidy.  They  was  married  to  church,  an'  had 
cake  an'  whiskey,  an'  dancin'  all  night ;  an' 
she  had  four  dresses  an'  a  store-trimmed  hat. 
I— I  hain't  got  nuthin'." 

We  were  approaching  a  large  shop,  I 
pressed  a  roll  of  bills  into  her  hand. 

"  Buy  all  that  you  need,  here,"  I  said. 
"  In  the  meantime,  I  will  go  for  the  license. 
I  shall  be  back  with  it  within  an  hour." 

God  knows  that  I  meant  to  keep  my 
promise !  Yet  I  failed  it — poor  Nan,  poor 
Nan! 


XIII. 

MY  impulse  to  flee  from  the  city,  the 
temptation  of  whose  wealth  I  had  not  been 
strong  enough  to  resist,  had  been  a  passion- 
ate one.  Now  that  my  blood  was  cool,  I 
asked  myself  where  I — I  and  Nan — were 
going  ?  My  heart  turned  to  the  country — 
God's  garden,  whose  flowers  bloom  alike  for 
rich  and  poor.  In  the  still  green  fields,  the 
pure  fresh  air,  the  soothing  hush  and  restful 
isolation,  my  storm-tossed  soul  would  regain 
calm  and  peace.  I  would  have  no  more  of 
men  -  built  cities.  It  is  the  chill  of  the 
marble  palace,  the  shadow  of  the  brown- 
stone  mansion,  that  falls  upon  the  poor 
man's  hovel  with  blight  of  death.  In  the 
country  the  sun  is  bright  and  warm  alike  on 


62       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

manse  and  cottage.  Tolstoi  is  right.  To 
guide  the  plough,  to  plant  the  ground,  to 
foster  the  seed,  to  reap  the  harvest — this  is 
the  work  for  men.  Leave  the  town  pursuits 
to  the  gentlemen.  The  exotic  flourishes  in 
the  hot-house,  where  the  field-bloom  fades 
and  dies. 

As  for  my  book,  I  was  content.  So  help 
me  God — I  had  had  no  thought  of  personal 
gain,  either  of  gold  or  fame,  in  writing  it ! 
I  had  written  what  I  had  to  write,  I  had  in- 
sured its  publication.  My  duty  was  done. 
Moreover,  I  knew  that  the  book  would  be 
well  cared  for.  I  had  left  it  in  Harold's 
hands. 

Walking  down  toward  City  Hall  for  my 
marriage  license,  I  noticed  a  dense  crowd 
gathering  in  one  of  the  down-town  squares. 

"  What's  up  ?  "  I  asked  a  fellow-bystander. 

"The  dander  of  the  masses,  evidently,"  he 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       63 

replied.  "I'm  here  to  report  the  speeches- 
yonder  fellows — pointing  to  an  armed  police- 
squad  filing  toward  the  square — "  to  retort 
them,  with  clubs  and  pistols.  Better  keep 
out  of  the  row." 

He  was  a  fresh-faced,  blue-eyed  young  fel- 
low, of  compact,  powerful  physique.  His 
cap  was  pushed  well  back  on  his  head,  and 
I  could  no't  but  notice  his  splendid  forehead, 
high,  full  and  broad,  and  smooth  and  white 
as  a  girl's.  It  was  framed  in  a  curly  tangle 
of  golden  hair.  His  ready,  boyish  smile  was 
irresistible.  My  first  impression  of  him, 
which  proved  a  correct  one,  was  that  he 
carried  life,  like  his  cap,  jauntily. 

"  I  like  rows,"  I  said  to  him. 

"  So  do  I,"  he  laughed.  "  I  live  by  them. 
The  bigger  the  row  the  bigger  my  salary. 
I  expect  to  be  rolling  in  wealth  to-mor- 


row." 


64       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

"Does  literary  work  pay  ?  "  I  asked  him, 
with  sudden  interest. 

"  No,"  Le  answered,  with  a  mischievous 
twinkle  in  his  blue  eyes,  "  but  newspaper- 
work  does — the  only  work,  by  the  way,  of 
which  as  much  may  be  said,  if  we  are  to 
take  the  word  of  these  strikers.  What  do 
you  think  of  their  case  ?  " 

11 1 — I  don't  know  anything  about  it,"  I 
stammered,  shamefacedly.  I  could  not  ex- 
plain to  him  why  for  the  last  fortnight  I 
had  lived  in  a  world  apart. 

"  Jerusalem  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Then  you 
don't  know  anything  about  me  either.  If 
you'd  read  the  papers,  you'd  have  seen  my 
mark  on  the  '  Labor  versus  Capital '  page, 
every  day  for  the  last  week.  I'm  Frank 
Noble — not  half  a  bad  name,  is  it  ?  This  is 
the  eighth  day  of  the  greatest  labor  strike 
on  American  record.  The  Union  is  backing 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       65 

it.  That's  one  of  the  Union  officers  now, 
speechifying.  I  can't  catch  a  word,  but  I'll 
fill  a  column  with  what  he  ought  to  be  say- 
ing, if  he  isn't.  Read  to-morrow's  '  Herald  ' 
—but  no,  you  don't  read  the  papers,  do 
you?" 

"I  do,"  I  cried.  "Every  man  reads  them, 
who  has  eyes,  and  a  brain  behind  them. 
But  for  the  last  fortnight  I  have  read,  seen, 
heard  nothing.  I — I " 

I  interrupted  myself  with  a  start  of  keen 
surprise.  The  charm  of  the  frank  blue  eyes, 
of  the  sunny  boyish  smile,  had  all  but  be- 
trayed me  into  confiding  in  him.  He 
noticed  my  embarrassment,  and  delicately 
changed  the  subject.  I  think  he  entertained 
a  sudden  suspicion  that  my  newspaperless 
fortnight  had  been  passed  in  jail. 

"  Poor  devils  !  "  he  exclaimed,  indicating 
the  mass  of  unwashed,  unshaved,  shabbily- 


66       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

clad,  desperate -faced  men  crowding  and  jost- 
ling each  other  in  front  of  the  platform, 
"  I  am  sony  for  them,  and  hope  they  may 
get  their  rights.  As  to  their  wrongs,  I 
wonder  if  some  of  them  are  not  of  their  own 
making  ?  I've  racketed  about  the  world 
with  eyes  wide  open,  for  thirteen  years — ran 
away  with  a  circus  when  I  was  eleven,  and 
haven't  turned  the  quarter  -  century  corner 
yet,  and  I've  never  yet  seen  a  case  of  real 
destitution  that  the  big  D  of  Drink  wasn't 
at  the  bottom  of  it.  If  these  Union  orators 
would  turn  their  socialistic  harangues  into 
temperance  lectures,  I  believe  that  the  first 
step  toward  the  Anti-Poverty  millennium 
would  be  scaled." 

"  You  are  right,  and  wrong ! "  I  answered.- 
"  Temperance  would  indeed  be  a  blow  under 
which  Poverty  would  stagger,  but  so  would 
the  'poor.  Only  the  legs  of  the  poor  fail 


THE   WOMAX  WHO  STOOD  BET  WE  EX.       67 

them  in  drunkenness ;  their  hearts  and  souls 
would  fail  in  sobriety !  The  poor  drink, 
and  forget ;  they  drink,  and  dream ;  they 
drink,  and  hope ;  they  drink,  and  exult ! 
When  you  wrest  the  glass  from  their  lips, 
you  wrest  from  their  lives,  with  it,  all  that 
makes  the  difference  between  a  man's  life 
and  brute-existence.  And  the  poor  man's 
life  is  a  brute  existence.  Curses  upon  the 
creators  of  it !  " 

u  You  mean  the  rich  ?  " 

"  I  mean  the  rich. " 

"  Then  you  are  really  a  socialist  ?  I  took 
you  for  an  outsider.  What  are  your  name 
and  trade — or  profession,  is  it  ?  You  look 
like  a  toiler,  and  talk  like  a  dreamer. 
You'll  write  up  splendidly." 

He  whipped  out  his  book  and  pencil.  I 
watched  him  proudly,  defiantly,  as  he  jotted 
down  uiy  answer. 


68       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

"I  am  Otho  Wolfgang  von  Vost,  Anar- 
chist ! "  I  said.  "  In  a  month  or  two,  you, 
your  newspapers,  will  have  heard  more  of 


me." 


As  with  eager  interest  he  pressed  me  for 
an  explanation  of  my  mysterious  words,  a 
sullen  roar  from  the  crowd  interrupted  us. 
Toward  the  platform  from  which  half  a 
dozen  excited  speakers  were  now  shouting 
anarchical  threats,  the  armed  police  were 
forcing  their  way.  As  the  captain  of  the 
squad  mounted  the  stand,  one  of  the 
speakers  drew  and  cocked  a  revolver. 

The  deed,  I  believe,  was  one  of  mere 
bravado,  but  it  acted  upon  the  crowd  like 
flame  upon  dry  wood.  There  were  oaths, 
and  threats,  and  screams  of  rage,  and  a 
general  drawing  of  knives  and  pistols.  In  a 
second,  the  police  had  opened  fire.  To  do 
them  justice,  they  shot  in  the  air,  but  the 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       69 

effect  was  as  deadly  as  if  they  had  aimed  at 
hearts.  The  maddened  mob  retaliated. 
There  was  a  babel  of  shrieks  and  curses,  a 
hissing  shower  of  bullets — then,  as  it  seemed 
to  me,  a  surge  of  the  whole  dense  crowd 
upon  me.  I  threw  out  my  arms,  and  cried 
that  I  was  stifling,  strangling.  A  sting  in 
uiy  left  breast,  a  choking  gurgle  in  my 
throat,  silenced  me.  A  death-like  faintness 
swept  like  a  chill  wave  over  me.  I  felt  my- 
self sinking  down,  down,  into  a  yawning 

fathomless  pit  of  darkness- 

I  knew  no  more, 


XIV. 

A  PERIOD  of  hell  ensued. 

When  I  woke  from  my  swoon,  the  pit  was 
dark  no  longer,  it  was  burning,  blazing, 
blinding — a  vortex  of  seething  fire.  I  strove 
to  cry  out  and  struggle,  as  the  red  flames 
wreathed  and  lapped  me,  but  from  my 
scorched  lips  no  sound  issued,  and  weights  of 
red-hot  iron  bound  my  limbs.  Demon-faces 
leered  at  me,  framed  in  fire ;  demon- voices 
mocked  me  from  the  hissing  flames.  With 
one  mighty  wrench,  awful  as  the  death- 
wrench  of  soul  from  body,  I  broke  from  my 
fiery  gyves,  and  dashed  out — out — out 

O  God !  the  death-like  cold,  the  grave- 
like  darkness !  less  awful  the  flames  and 
glare  of  the  fiery  pit. 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       71 

Then  once  more  the  helpless  sinking  into 
the  dark  depths  of  unconsciousness.  And 
thus,  over  and  over,  again  and  again. 

When  I  awoke  from  my  delirium,  I  found 
myself  in  the  ward  of  a  hospital,  with  rows 
of  white  pallets  facing  me,  and  bounding  me 
on  either  side.  Between  every  two  beds  was 
a  large  window.  The  curtains  were  raised, 
and  the  sunlight  flickered  on  the  white 
counterpanes,  and  over  the  clean  wood-floor. 
The  doctors,  three  in  number,  one  old  and 
two  young  ones,  were  making  their  rounds. 
A  white-capped  nurse  accompanied  them. 

The  faces  upon  the  pillows  were  of  all 
types,  young  and  old,  fair  and  ugly,  good 
and  bad.  refined  and  brutal.  Two  especially 
attracted  my  attention.  They  were  sharp 
contrasts.  One  was  the  face  of  a  youth  re- 
turning to  life  from  the  shadow  of  death; 
one  the  face  of  an  old  man,  upon  which  the 


72       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

awful  shadow  was  deepening.  I  saw  it  on 
his  damp  forehead,  on  his  pinched  gray  feat- 
ures, in  his  staring,  glassy  eyes.  Even  as  I 
looked,  the  death-rattle  sounded  in  his  throat. 
He  gurgled,  gasped,  and  passed  away ;  with- 
out a  word,  without  a  sign,  without  the 
touch  or  glance  or  voice  of  a  human  fellow- 
creature  to  hid  him  God-speed  on  Death's 
unknown  way.  The  doctors  crossed  to  his 
bedside,  felt  his  pulse,  and  turned  away. 
The  nurse  drew  a  screen  around  his  bed. 
The  face  of  the  young  man  I  have  mentioned 
blanched  and  quivered.  He  had  a  heart— 
the  curse  of  youth  and  innocence  !  There 
was  a  tear  on  my  own  cheek,  but  my  eyes 
were  weak  only,  not  pitiful.  Poverty  turns 
the  heart  to  stone — and  the  soul  to  flesh  ! 

The  doctors  reached  me,  and  the  nurse. 
The  men-nurses  stood  in  a  group  outside  the 
door,  discussing  with  the  warden  the  case  of 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       73 

one  of  the  ward,  whose  complaints  against 
the  hospital  had  reached  the  newspapers. 
The  white-capped  nurse  brushed  the  hair 
away  from  my  forehead,  with  gentle  hand. 
I  noticed  her  touch,  because  I  had  dreaded 
it.  1  had  seen  a  man  across  the  aisle  flinch, 
heard  him  cry  out,  under  it.  But  then  it  had 
not  been  gentle.  He  was  old,  and  ugly. 

I  drifted  into  a  deep,  sweet,  natural  sleep, 
the  sleep  of  utter  exhaustion.  I  awoke  in  a 
private  room  in  the  hospital,  with  Harold's 
tender  face  bending  over  me.  The  tears 
welled  from  my  eyes  as  I  recognized  him. 
He  took  my  hand  in  a  strong,  close  clasp. 

"  Thank  God,  old  fellow  ! "  I  heard  him 
murmur. 

I  turned  my  face  to  the  wall,  and  wept  in 
silence.  The  reverent  words  had  touched 
me.  God  is— Who  ?  Thank  Him  for  what  ? 
my  doubting  soul  questioned.  Yet  in  those 


74       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETY.'EEN'. 

silent  tears,  I  think  that  both  my  faith  and 
my  thanksgiving  were  offered,  for  the  first 
time,  to  the  Most  High. 

"  Do  not  try  to  talk,"  Harold  said,  as  I  at- 
tempted to  speak.  "  I  will  tell  you  every- 
thing, if  you  are  quiet ;  but  nurse,  here,  says 
that  I  must  go,  if  I  excite  you.  And  above 
all  other  wilful  women,  we  all  know  that 
nurses  must  have  their  way." 

I  looked  up  with  a  smile  that  died  in  a 
shudder.  The  ward  nurse  had  followed  me 
to  my  room.  I  remembered  the  old  man  op- 
posite, and  his  cry  of  pain  under  her  untender 
hands.  Her  caressing  smile  could  not  make 
me  forget  it.  I  turned  my  face  from  her. 

"  Go  away  !  "  I  said  ;  and  even  that  slight 
effort  made  me  faint. 

As  in  a  dream,  I  heard  Harold's  courteous 
apologies,  and  her  fretful  expostulations. 
When  the  door  had  opened  and  shut  behind 


THE   WOMAN   WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       75 

her,  I  reopened  rny  eyes  with  a  smile.  Har- 
old understood. 

"  You  do  not  like  her  ?  "  he  asked.  "  You 
shall  have  a  man-nurse." 

I  pressed  his  hand,  and  mustered  all  my 
strength  for  a  further  effort. 

"  Tell  me,"  I  began ;  then  my  weak  Voice 
failed.  But  his  fine  intuition  needed  no 
spoken  question.  He  bathed  my  brow,  and 
forced  a  teaspoonful  of  brandy  between  my 
chill  lips.  As  I  revived,  he  spoke. 

'"  You  were  shot  at  the  mass-meeting,"  he 
said.  "  The  ball  lodged  too  near  your  heart 
for  the  doctors  to  probe  for  it.  When  you 
recover  your  strength,  it  will  not  matter,  but 
at  present  any  effort  might  give  it  a  push  in 
a  fatal  direction.  Therefore  you  must  be 
quite  passive  for  some  days  yet.  You  were 
brought  to  the  hospital  with  a  dozen  other 
wounded,  but  identified,  later,  by  a  bright 


76       TUB   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

young  journalist,  through  whom  I  discov- 
ered your  whereabouts.  He  has  visited  you 
every  day  since  your  accident,  and  has  been 
writing  you  up,  as  he  calls  it,  with  a  pen 
steeped  in  youthful  enthusiasm.  You  are 
now  a  famous  author,  you  know.  Your  ac- 
cident dates,  you  will  be  surprised  to  hear, 
nearly*  nine  weeks  back.  Your  long  high 
fever  was  followed  by  an  alarming  stupor  of 
exhaustion,  but  the  doctors'  permission  to 
remove  you  from  the  ward  was  a  tacit  as- 
surance of  your  recovery.  All  you  need 
now  is  patience.  Happy  hopes  should 
speed  your  convalescence.  The  life  that  lies 
before  you  is  a  far  brighter  and  more  beauti- 
ful one  than  the  life  that  lies  behind.  Your 
work  is  a  success,  social,  literary,  and  finan- 
cial. I  tell  you  this,  in  the  belief  that 
pleasant  news  is  only  healthfully  exciting. 
When  you  left  us  so  unceremoniously  upon 


THE  WOMAN   WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       77 

the  occasion  of  your  call  at  the  office,  I  took 
your  book  into  my  own  hands,  rushing  its 
publication,  as  the  strikes  made  such  a  work 
upon  the  labor-question  opportune.  The  re- 
sult has  more  than  fulfilled  my  highest 
hopes.  I  think  you  will  find,  upon  investi- 
gation, that  we  have  done  justly,  even  gen- 
erously, by  you.  Now  shut  your  eyes,  and 
go  to  sleep.  To-morrow  I  will  tell  you 
more.  Lie  still  !  Don't  try  to  speak  !  My 
God,  man,  you  will  kill  yourself !  Lie 
back  !  I  say  !  Lie  back  !  " 

He  had  spoken  two  words  which  were 
branded  in  torturing  fire  before  my  eyes, 
upon  my  brain,  within  my  heart.  All  that 
he  had  said  before  them,  all  that  he  had  said 
after  them,  was  as  nothing.  I  knew  neither 
that  my  life  was  in  danger,  nor  that  I  was  a 
famous  author.  I  knew  only  that  I  had 
been  lying  there,  a  powerless,  insensate  log, 


78       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

for  nine  long  weeks.  Nine  weeks  of  days, 
nine  weeks  of  nights — and  Nan,  poor,  lov- 
ing, trusting,  forsaken  Nan — 

"  Nan  !  "  I  screamed,  wildly. 

"  Hush  !  "  he  cried.  "  A  woman  named 
Xaii  ?  I  will  find  her  for  you." 

I  strove  to  speak.  Suddenly  I  choked 
and  gurgled.  A  gush  of  something  warm 
and  red  welled  from  my  lips. 

Then  a  terrible  agony  convulsed  me.  An 
iron  hand  clutched  my  racked  heart,  crush- 
ing it,  rending  it. 

*'  Nan  !  Nan !  "  I  heard  a  wild  voice  cry- 
ing. 

A  wave  of  death-like  pain  and  faintness 
engulfed  me.  As  it  bore  me  downward, 
submerging  me  in  its  chill,  dark  depths,  I 
heard  the  voice  still  crying — 

"  Nan  !     Nan  !     Nan  !  " 


XV. 

DEEP  down  into  the  valley  of  Death  I 
went,  then.  It  was  only  by  a  miracle  that  I 
regained  the  heights  of  life  and  health,  they 
told  me  later. 

"  A  miracle  of  youth  and  strength,"  said 
the  doctor. 

"  A  miracle  of  God,"  said  the  priest. 

Then  I  wondered  which  was  right.  Now 
I  know  that  both  were  wrong.  It  was  a 
miracle  of  the  devil. 

A  month  later,  I  was  out  of  the  hospital ; 
wasted  and  pale,  weaker  constitutionally,  for 
my  accident,  since  warned  that  any  violent 
emotion  might  cause  my  death ;  yet  feeling 
almost  my  old  self,  physically. 

Physically,  yes  ;  but  mentally — my  God  ! 


80       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

No  damned  soul  in  hell  suffered  more  dia- 
bolical torments  than  I,  through  the  long, 
weary,  restless  days  and  nights  of  convales- 
cence, while  my  weakness  withheld  me  from 
beginning  my  search  for  Nan.  It  was  not 
that  I  loved  the  girl  with  the  love  with  which 
a  man  loves  one  woman,  and  one  only,  in  his 
life.  It  was — but  what  words  can  I  use,  to 
make  you  understand  me  ?  She  was  not  to 
me  simply  Nan  the  girl,  the  woman ;  but 
rather  the  human  feminine  embodiment  of 
the  piteous  cause  to  which  my  life  was  con- 
secrated. She  was  Poverty,  she  was  Weak- 
ness, she  was  Want,  she  was  Ignorance,  she 
was  Helplessness,  she  was  Slavery  :  she  was, 
in  short,  the  incarnate  Sacrifice,  Martyr,  Vic- 
tim of  evil  social  conditions,  the  living  holo- 
caust of  shameful  social  forces,  to  whose  de- 
struction my  life  was  sworn  ! 

And  to  her,  thus,  as  I  regarded  her,  I,  her 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       81 

sworn  upholder,  defender,  avenger,  had  done 
the  cruellest  of  wrongs — smitten  her  lower 
than  wealth  or  power  or  pride  or  oppression 
had  ever  smitten  her.  These,  at  least,  had 
left  her  innocent.  I  had  betrayed  her,  soul 
and  flesh,  to  sin. 

Well  I  knew  it,  knowing  her,  knowing  her 
life — her  irrevocable  past,  her  inevitable  fut- 
ure !  Harold  and  Frank  and  I  talked  it 
over  and  over,  day  after  day,  as  I  tossed 
restlessly  to  and  fro  on  my  hospital  bed. 
Harold,  in  his  gentle,  generous  way,  hoped 
for  the  best,  and  was  confident,  until  a  per- 
sonal search  proved  otherwise,  that  she  had 
returned  to  her  home  and  mother.  But 
Frank,  wiser  in  his  youthful  generation  than 
Harold  in  his,  agreed  with  me  that  the  be- 
trayed, deserted  girl,  comely  with  the  come- 
liness born  of  youth  and  animal  health  and 
vigor,  would  not  escape  temptation,  to  which, 


82       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

in  her  despair,  her  shame,  her  helplessness, 
and  the  recklessness  of  her  untutored  passion- 
ate nature,  she  would  succumb  perforce,  if, 
as  Frank  suggested,  she  had  not  already 
sought  refuge  in  the  river.  But  this  sugges- 
tion I  could  not  entertain.  I  could  have 
found  it  in  my  heart  to  wish  that  it  might  be 
so ;  but  in  my  soul,  I  knew  it  was  not.  Nan 
lived  still.  Something  told  me  this.  But 
where  ? — and  O  God  !  how  ? 

I  need  not  say  that  I  had  never  been  a  re- 
ligious man.  I  had  not  been  even  a  moral 
one,  as  the  conventional  cant  of  morals  goes. 
Nevertheless,  as  a  matter  of  taste,  perhaps, 
since  not  of  morals,  my  personal  life  had 
been  a  clean  one.  I  had  lived  life  passion- 
ately ;  but  it  is  the  most  narrow,  the  most 
gross,  the  most  degrading  of  mistakes,  to  hold 
that  passion  is  necessarily  of  the  flesh,  and 
that  all  men  are  slaves  to  it.  Passion  is  the 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       83 

strongest  sentiment,  emotion,  desire — call  it 
what  you  will — humanity  knows,  yes ! — but 
the  passion  of  the  senses  is  its  lowest  and 
weakest,  and  because  its  lowest  and  weakest, 
its  commonest  phase.  The  passion  of  the 
heart,  the  passion  of  the  mind,  the  passion 
of  the  soul,  are  strongest,  even  as  they 
are  highest.  What  is  Religion,  but  the  pas- 
sion of  the  human  for  the  divine  \  What  is 
Philanthrophy,  but  passion  for  humanity  ? 
What  is  Patriotism,  but  passion  for  country  ? 
What  is  Martyrdom,  but  passion  for  self-sac- 
rifice ?  What  is  Heroism,  but  the  passion  for 
risk,  strife,  conquest  ?  What  is  Genius,  but 
passion  for  science  and  art  ?  All  great  men 
have  been  men  of  strong  passions — passions 
of  soul  or  mind.  Love,  the  heart  passion,  is 
the  purest,  highest,  noblest  of  all  passions. 
But  as  for  the  flesh-passion,  simple  and  singly 
• — faugh  !  Leave  brute  instincts  to  the  brute. 


84       THE  WOJAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN^ 

As  I  have  said,  I  had  lived  at  once  a  clean 
life,  and  a  passionate  one.  The  passion  kin- 
dled in  my  childhood,  which  had  flamed  in 
my  boyhood,  been  fanned  to  fire  in  my  man- 
hood, was  the  passion  inherited  from  my 
father  and  fostered  by  him — the  passion  for 
"  Liberty  !  Equality  !  Fraternity  !  "  The 
concentrated,  commingled  forces  of  soul  and 
mind  and  heart  and  body,  had  all  alike  been 
turned  in  this  one  direction.  This  is  why  I 
had  felt  no  temptation  toward  an  unclean 
life.  Had  I  been  tempted,  I  should  have 
yielded,  holding,  as  I  have  said,  no  conven- 
tional tenets  as  to  moral  right  and  wrong. 
As  to  love,  I  did  not  know  it.  Nan  was  the 
first  woman  who  had  ever  touched  me ;  but 
her  touch,  I  knew,  instinctively,  \vas  only  the 
lightest  flick  of  the  wing  of  love,  in  its  riot, 
ous  infancy.  The  strong,  close  fold  of  love's 
full-grown  pinions  I  might,  or  might  not, 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       85 

live  to  know ;  but  Nail  would  never  wield 
them. 

In  my  weakness  and  recklessness,  I  re- 
vealed my  whole  heart,  talking  my  thoughts 
out  wildly,  to  the  two  who  listened.  I 
think  that  Harold  understood  me,  but  Frank 
did  not.  In  his  boyish  conception,  love  was 
love,  and  indifference,  indifference;  he  real- 
ized no  subtle  grades  between.  In  spite  of 
his  youthful  enthusiasms,  he  was  a  realist 
rather  than  an  idealist ;  made  such  through 
the  daring  spirit  of  adventure  which  had  led 
him  to  investigate  the  shadowed  byways  of 
life  as  well  as  its  shining  highways.  Knowl- 
edge of  life's  darker  phases,  however,  had 
left  no  stain  on  his  clean  soul.  Like  my- 
self, he  was  a  man  of  clean  tastes,  rather 
than  of  clean  morals ;  and  so-called  im- 
morality in  others  neither  surprised  nor  re- 
pelled him.  He  accepted  it  simply  as  a 


86        THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

common,  if  unlovely,  feature  of  human  ex- 
istence. 

Therefore,  it  was  without  pang  of  con- 
science that  I  entrusted  to  him  the  search 
from  which  my  invalid  helplessness  debarred 
me — the  search  for  Nan  in  the  sphere  where- 
in, sooner  or  later,  I  felt  sure  we  would  find 
her.  The  girl's  face  as  her  mother's  taunt, 
"  No  traipsin'  back  to  me  wi'  his  brat  at  yer 
breast,"  had  followed  us,  was  ever  befyre 
me.  Come  what  would,  Nan  would  never 
go  back  to  her,  a  nameless  outcast.  Death, 
hell  itself,  were  preferable. 

Frank  was,  as  he  said  himself,  an  able 
"  slummer."  He  was  no  novice  in  the  r61e, 
his  journalistic  career  having  been  more  or 
less  characterized  by  "  sensations,"  as  the 
term  has  it,  in  the  slum-line;  and  his  search 
for  Nan  was  as  thorough  and  exhaustive  as 

*j 

I  myself  could   have  made.     That   he  had 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       87 

never  seen  her  personally,  was,  of  course,  a 
disadvantage ;  but  I  had  a  cheap  tintype  of 
her  for  which  she  had  sat  for  me  .specially, 
I  believe,  poor  girl,  which  would  serve  to 
identify  her ;  and  moreover,  her  trick  of  gait, 
not  marked  enough  to  amount  to  a  limp,  yet 
too  pronounced  a  peculiarity  to  escape  an 
eye  forewarned,  would  alone  insure  his  rec- 
ognition of  her,  should  he  cross  her  path. 

But  he  failed  to  cross  it,  even  as  I  failed, 
later;  though  by  dawn  and  noon  and  mid- 
night we  searched  the  haunts  where  the  girls 
of  the  pavement  congregate.  We  set  the 
officers  of  the  force  to  hunt  her.  We  set  the 
sleuth-hounds  of  her  own  sex  and  social  con- 
dition on  her  track.  All  to  no  avail.  From 
hall  and  dive  and  rum-hole  and  den  and  cel- 
lar, we  turned  to  the  sweating-shops,  the  fac- 
tories, the  tenements.  In  last  forlorn  hope, 
I  sought  her  mother.  She  was  drunk,  as 

Cj  ' 


88        THE   WOMAN   WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

usual.  When  I  told  her  the  truth,  she  wept 
some  maudlin  tears.  Then  a  delirium  of 
anger  took  possession  of  her. 

"It's  a  lie!"  she  yelled.  "Yer  brought 
her  ter  shame,  an'  killed  her  ter  git  rid  of 
her.  My  Nan's  dead  !  My  Nan's  murdered  ! 
Nan,  Nan,  Nan— 

Her  wild  shrieks  died  in  sobs,  as  I  left 
her,  prostrated  by  grief  and  liquor.  Never- 
theless, for  the  first  time,  I  respected  her. 
She  believed  what  she  said,  and  the  coarse, 
bloated,  unsexed  breast  shrined  the  heart  of 
a  woman  and  mother. 

"  If  Nan  had  known  as  much,  she  would 
have  come  back  to  her,"  I  thought,  miser- 
ably. 

But  she  had  not  known,  and  she  had  not 
gone  back. 

I  relinquished  the  vain  search. 


XVI. 

IT  was  during  the  restless  days  of  my  con- 
valescence that  Harold,  seated  by  ray  bed- 
side, his  gentle  hand  in  mine,  told  me  of  his 
love.  It  was  a  great  love,  deep  and  strong 
as  his  man's  heart,  yet  pure  with  an  angelic 
purity,  tender  with  a  tenderness  surpassing 
woman's.  He  had  never  told  her  of  it.  She 
was  happy  in  her  peaceful  girlish  life — he 
would  not  disturb  its  dream.  He  did  not 
tell  me  her  name.  She  was  "  her,"  the  one, 
the  only  one  the  world  held  for  him.  His 
voice  was  low  and  reverent  as  he  talked  of 
her,  like  the  voice  of  one  in  prayer. 

"  She  is  so  pure,  so  shy,"  he  said,  "  a 
word,  a  touch  would  kill  her.  I  looked  at 
her  once,  only  once,  with  the  lover's  eyes, 


90       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

and  I  saw  her  start  and  shrink  and  tremble, 
while  the  vestal  blood  surged  to  her  cheek, 

O 

and  her  shy  eyes  filled  with  startled  tears. 
She  knew  not  why.  She  is  like  a  white 
rose,  veiling  her  sweet  heart  from  the  zephyr 
in  whose  warm  breath  she  feels  the  presage 
of  the  coming,  fierce  simoom.  Sometimes  I 
doubt  if  I  shall  ever  reach  her.  How  shall 
my  feet  steal  near  her  ?  And  yet  she  is  a 
woman — woman,  God's  gift  to  man.  Some- 
time, somehow,  she  will  learn  the  woman's 
lesson — the  lesson  of  surrender,  by  sweet 
Love  taught. 

"  O,  Otho  !  to  be  her  teacher  !  to  see  her 
learn  the  lesson  !  She  will  come  to  its  pages 
with  wayward  eyes,  and  wilful  pouting 
mouth,  as  a  child  goes  to  its  book.  Then 
her  eyes  will  drop,  and  her  soft  mouth 
tremble.  She  will  turn,  and  flee  in  fear,  but 
Love's  voice  will  recall  her.  It  will  be  gen- 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       91 

tie,  yet  resolute,  masterful.  She  will  resist, 
then  pause,  then — obey !  With  burning 
cheeks  fanned  by  her  veiled  eyes'  lashes,  she 
will  return,  unseeing  that  Love's  open  arms 
await  her.  Into  them  she  will  go,  unheed- 
ing; and  when  they  close  around  her  she 
will  struggle,  and  tremble,  and — yield.  The 
surprise,  the  fear,  the  shame  of  yielding  will 
overwhelm  her.  She  will  lie  quite  passive, 
faint,  bewildered,  helpless,  in  Love's  em- 
brace. But  little  by  little,  her  woman-heart 
will  kindle.  Her  calm  white  breast  will 
glow  and  quicken  ;  her  soft  white  arms  will 
cling  close,  closer ;  her  sweet  red  lips  will 
yield  responsive  kisses.  Stay  !  Love's  holy 
veil  must  not  be  lifted.  God's  angels  fend 
it  with  their  strong  white  wings." 

Thus  spoke  the  heart  of  the  man.  Then 
spoke  the  heart  of  the  gentleman.  The 
voice  was  a  revelation  to  me.  The  man  has 


92     Tin:  \VOMAX  WHO  STOOD 

the  brand  of  the  brute  upon  him ;  the  gen- 
tleman, nature's  gentleman,  I  mean,  the 
mark  of  the  god. 

"  These  women  !  these  women  !  "  he  cried, 
"  who  come  to  us,  at  our  unworthy  bidding, 
their  hearts,  like  sweet  white  flowers,  in 
their  hands.  Our  rude  hands  bruise  and 
rend  them.  Even  our  caress  hurts.  They 
shrink  and  wilt  beneath  its  passion,  like 
lilies  in  fierce  sun.  They  are  so  fair,  so 
pure,  so  tender.  Love  should  fold  like  an- 
gel-wing around  them.  Instead  it  swoops 
like  hawk,  on  wings  of  flame.  They  yield, 
we  claim,  so  much — we  hold  so  little  !  Hot 
lips,  to  sear  with  kisses;  fierce  arms,  to 
crush,  caressing  !  and  after,  what  ?  What 
for  the  pure  true  hearts,  what  for  the  faith- 
ful souls,  what  for  the  lives'  sweet  service  ? 
The  title  of  wife — children  to  the  breast— 
for  our  own  pride  and  pleasure.  But  what 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       93 

for  their  sakes  ?  Nothing  !  They  are  ours  ! 
No  longer  their  own,  no  longer  themselves, 
even  ;  but  only  one  with  us  !  They  have  no 
claims,  no  independent  rights.  We  are 
Grand  Moguls ;  they  our  harem-pets.  Soft 
couches,  which  we  share ;  scents,  to  make 
them  more  sweet;  jewels  to  deck  their 
beauty  for  our  eyes ;  feasts,  whereat  they 
serve — all  these  we  give  with  generous 
hand !  But  let  their  lonely  souls  plead 
guidance  on  God's  way — their  pure  heart- 
cry,  '  Fidelitas  I '  challenge  ours — their  fet- 
tered minds  claim  freedom — ah  !  for  the 
bread  they  hunger  we  give  stones,  which 
hurt  the  more  because  hurled  with  a  kiss  !  " 

Then  back  to  the  personal  note,  the  heart 
of  the  man,  love  •  hungry,  lifting  its  cry 
anew. 

"Sweetheart!  Wife!  Mother!  What 
would  life  be  without  her  ?  Where  would 


94:       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

be  youth's  ideals,  man's  inspiration  and  re- 
ward ?  The  fair  young  girl,  the  tender, 
faithful  woman — the  home,  earth's  heaven, 
of  which  man  is  the  god  !  O,  Otho,  the 
home,  the  home  !  I  yearn  for  it,  I  pray  for 
it.  I  shut  my  eyes  and  dream  that  it  is 
mine.  I  feel  my  tired  feet  hastening  as 
they  near  it,  I  see  the  home-light  shining  at 
the  window,  the  home-door  set  ajar.  I  see 
her  waiting,  smiling  on  the  threshold,  I 
hear  her  gentle  greeting,  I  feel  her  kiss  of 
welcome  on  my  lips.  I  follow  her  within, 
to  the  home-hearthstone.  The  great  chair 
waits ;  she  nestles  by  my  side.  My  racked 
brow  knows  her  sweet  lips'  benediction. 
Her  soft  palms  feel  like  snow-flakes,  light 
and  cool.  Mayhap  she  whispers  low  a  shy. 
sweet  secret.  Toward  us,  God-sent  from 
heaven,  a  wee  angel  is  on  flight.  O,  little 
woman,  love,  wife,  home-maker,  mother ! 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       95 

how  long,  how  long  before  my  dream  comes 
true?" 

Then,  with  a  lover's  fond,  fatuous  recur- 
rence, back  to  her ! 

"  She  is  so  fair — so  fair  and  sweet  and 
tender.  As  soft  clouds  dapple  heaven, 
dreams  brood  within  her  eyes.  She  is  not 
gay,  not  light,  but  sweetly  serious.  She 
prays,  and  thinks,  and  builds  celestial 
castles,  dreaming  them  founded  on  eternal 
rock.  Her  sight  is  fixed  on  visions ;  she  is 
an  idealist — of  realities  !  Her  visions,  like 
yours,  are  of  human  and  social  millenniums 
whose  like  this  age  will  never  live  to  see. 
You  must  meet  her  some  day,  Otho.  You 
will  suit  each  other,  and  yet — you  will  not 
understand  her.  She  hears  of  sin  and  evil, 
and  dreams  she  knows  their  meaning.  You 
must  not  take  her  at  her  word.  She  is  inno- 
cence, and  she  mistakes  herself  for  knowl- 


96       THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

edge.  The  mistake  is  perilous,  for  her.  Of 
late,  a  chill  fear  haunts  me  lest  her  dreams 
be  rudely  wakened,  her  innocence  blasted  by 
a  breath  whose  flame  will  kill !  I  watch- 
she  does  not  see  me.  I  wait — she  does  not 
know.  Some  day,  my  love  will  break  its 
bonds  and  claim  her.  O,  Otho,  my  heart 
trembles !  I  feel  in  premonition,  Hope's 
death,  fruitless  Love's  pain  !  " 

A  shadow  dimmed  his  love-illumined  eyes. 
His  face  was  suddenly  wan  with  a  great  sad- 
ness. I  could  not  reassure  him.  I  shared 
his  premonition.  Some  intuition  told  me 
that  he  would  lose  her. 

It  did  not  tell  me,  or,  I  call  God  to  wit- 
ness that  I  had  spared  him — that  his  loss 
would  come  through  me. 


XVII. 

As  Harold  had  foretold,  I  went  from  the 
hospital  into  a  changed,  if  not  new,  world. 
I  was  now  a  famous  man.  My  name  was  on 
all  tongues,  in  every  newspaper.  I  saw  my 
book  displayed  in  the  shop-windows,  and 
standing  open  on  the  news-stands.  Every- 
where, immense  advertisements  of  it  met  my 
eyes.  Moreover,  through  it,  I  had  what 
seemed  to  me  unlimited  wealth  at  my  com- 
mand. But  as  yet,  my  personal  life  had 
changed  no  whit.  I  was  still  the  obscure 
dreamer,  the  social  recluse.  Yet  both  great 
gain  and  loss  had  corne  to  me.  Harold  and 
Frank  were  gained,  indeed ;  but  ah,  the  loss 
of  Nan ! 

As  my  vain  search  ended,  there   came  a 


98       THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

change,  due  somewhat  to  Harold's  influence, 
but  more  to  my  own  restlessness,  I  think.  I 
emerged  from  my  hermit's  cell,  from  which 
both  press  and  public  alike  called  me — and 
surrendered  myself  to  Harold's  hands.  His 
first  act  was  to  take  me  to  his  tailor ;  his 
second,  to  dine  me  at  his  club.  When  I  had 
once  stood  a  man  among  gentlemen,  on 
equal  social  footing,  the  sequence  followed 
naturally  enough.  From  the  club  to  the 
home,  the  public  dinner  to  the  private  table, 
was  the  social  evolution  of  but  a  day.  I 
was  dined,  and  wined,  and  feted,  day  and 
night.  The  gentlemen  presented  me,  the 
ladies  received  me.  I  clasped  white  hands, 
which  once  had  scorned  their  alms  to  me — 
sat  side  by  side  with  queens  I  had  dared 
not  serve  !  The  famous  author  became  the 
social  lion.  I  accepted  the  role  but  not 
without  a  protest,  and  caused  an  occasional 


THE  WOMAN   WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.       99 

panic  by  indulging  in  a  growl.  When 
Harold  felt  me  chafing  in  my  cage,  he  let 
me  loose  for  a  few  days,  and  I  returned 
more  docile  for  my  freedom.  There  is  a 
lesson  in  this  confession,  for  those  who  care 
to  learn  it. 

I  think  my  character  is  a  complex  one. 
Impulsive  at  times,  even  to  the  verge  of 
folly,  as  even  so  much  of  my  narration  has 
already  shown,  I  was,  at  other  times,  the 
slowest,  the  least  impetuous,  the  most  apa- 
thetic of  men.  For  example,  my  book. 
Day  after  day,  for  unproductive  years,  I 
had  unconsciously  accumulated,  assimilated, 
the  impressions,  thoughts,  and  passions  re- 
corded on  its  pages,  later,  with  pen  of  white- 
hot  flame.  So  with  me  now.  I  took  my 
part  in  the  social  farce  like  any  other  player. 
Nevertheless,  the  day  would  come  when,  the 
mask  cast  off,  I  would  stand  forth  no  longer 


100     THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

the  showman's  puppet,  but  the  human  man, 
with  burning  heart  and  soul.  I  knew  it.  I 
think  Harold  knew  it.  He  watched  me 
closely ;  sometimes,  I  fancied,  nervously. 
But  his  fear  was  neither  for  himself  nor 
others,  but  only  for  myself.  His  sensitive- 
ness was  so  exquisite,  his  sympathy  so 
tender,  his  manly  love  so  true,  that  he 
shrunk  in  personal  pain  when,  by  chance  or 
accident,  he  exposed  me  to  sights  and  sounds 
that,  knowing  me  as  he  did,  he  knew  must 
stab  to  my  soul's  core.  But  born  and  bred 
to  the  gold  and  purple — even  he  could  not 
conceive  the  death -like  pang  of  Poverty's 
heart,  brought,  for  the  first  time,  face  to 
face  with  Wealth,  Pomp,  Power.  It  is  the 
stab  under  which  the  demons  writhe,  gazing 
from  hell  at  heaven.  It  is  not  Envy  ;  it  is 
not  even  Desire.  It  is  simply — Knowledge. 
I  cannot  express  the  impression  my  initia- 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     101 

tion  into  the  beautiful  world  of  pleasure 
made  upon  me.  "  Everything  has  two 
sides,"  says  the  old  saw ;  and  I,  who  had 
hated  wealth,  pride,  power,  looking  at  them 
from  the  outside,  now  viewed  them  from 
within.  Did  I  hate  them  still?  Yes,  a 
thousand  times  yes — the  more  bitterly  be- 
cause, perforce,  at  the  same  time  I  loved 
them ! 

Aye,  I  stand  confessed  a  traitor.  I 
yielded  to  their  spell,  succumbed  to  their 
lure,  drained  thirstily,  exultantly,  of  the 
siren -cup  I  should  have  spurned  and  shat- 
tered. 

"  Life  is  real ;  life  is  earnest,''  sings  the 
poet ;  but  he  sings  of  the  toiling  world  with- 
out the  world  of  pleasure,  not  of  the  dwell- 
ers within  its  golden  gates.  To  these  life  is 
not  real,  not  earnest ;  not  life  at  all,  as  great 
souls,  high  minds,  warm  hearts,  live  it.  The 


102  THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

children  of  pleasure  live  the  life  of  the  flesh 
alone,  the  highest  life  of  the  flesh — not  gross, 
not  coarse,  not  always  sensual,  even  ;  but 
from  cradle  to  grave,  from  conception  to  dis- 
solution, ideally,  exquisitely  sensuous.  If 
the  soul,  the  mind,  the  heart  are  starved,  the 
flesh,  the  senses,  are  satiated.  Beauty  for 
the  eyes,  music  for  the  ears,  sweets  for  the 
taste,  fragrance  for  the  smell,  softness  and 

o 

warmth,  and  every  sensuous  joy  the  flesh  can 
know  for  the  feeling.  O  God  !  O  God ! 
and  the  horrible  sights,  the  dreadful  sounds, 
the  sickening  stenches,  the  hunger  and  thirst, 
the  cold  and  nakedness,  the  manifold  agonies 
of  the  human  world  about  them ! 

In  the  world  of  pleasure  the  women  one 
and  all  are  beautiful,  with  a  beauty  in- 
dependent of  nature's  rarest  dower.  If  nat- 
ural beauty  exist,  its  germ  is  developed  to 
seed,  its  seed  to  bud,  its  bud  to  flower ;  if  it 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     103 

exist  not,  it  is  substituted  by  a  trick  of  ex- 
pression which  transforms  the  plain  face  like 
a  lustrous  veil — -an  art  of  grace,  a  charm  of 
manner,  a  fascination  of  speech,  a  brilliancy 
of  accomplishment,  a  lure  of  toilette,  a  foil 
of  environment,  which  arrest  and  hold  one 
spell-bound  with  the  power  of  beauty  itself. 
Beautiful  women,  what  do  you  make  of 
your  men  ?  Not  saints,  not  heroes,  not  -even 
poets,  as  true  poets  go  !  Not  faithful  hus- 
bands, not  noble  fathers,  not  filial  sons.  No, 
but  lovers  !  always  lovers,  lovers  !  As  wine 
is  to  the  blood,  so  love  is  to  the  flesh.  It 
warms,  and  thrills,  and  quickens.  Without 
wine,  where  were  the  wit  of  the  feast  ? 
Without  love,  where  the  after-pleasure  ? 
Where  is  the  harm  ?  There  is  no  sin  in  soft 
looks,  fond  words,  caressing  touches  ?  No, 
not  of  the  eye,  or  lip,  or  hand,  perhaps — but 
what  of  the  soul  behind  them  ?  Look  deep 


104     THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

within,  as  God's  eyes  look,  and  see  your  sin, 
O  whited  sepulchres ! 

I  will  be  just  and  honest.  In  the  world 
of  pleasure  are  Virtue  and  Justice,  Gener- 
osity, Charity,  Pity,  Unselfishness,  Heroism, 
Sacrifice.  There  is  Temperance  in  men ; 
there  is  Purity  in  women.  There  are  Duty, 
Honor,  Truth,  and  faithful  Love.  But  these 
are  the  exceptions,  not  the  rule.  I  say  it 
boldly.  God's  temples  lift  His  cross  at  the 
Hill-corners.  Man's  mansions  lift  a  hundred 
crowns,  between ! 


XVIII. 

THE  revulsion  of  feeling  I  experienced  upon 
my  introduction  into  the  world  of  the  rich 
and  great,  after  ray  life-long  sojourn  with  the 
poor  and  suffering,  explains,  I  think,  the  tor- 
por and  apathy  that  followed.  I  was  dazed, 
mentally  and  spiritually.  Like  a  ship  adrift 
on  unknown  waters,  I  had  to  take  my  bearings 
—a  slower  process  humanly  than  nautically. 

After  all,  the  soul  and  mind  fight  against 
heavy  odds  in  this  human  life  :  their  foe,  the 
flesh,  is  mighty.  I,  whose  soul  well  knew 
the  monopoly  of  wealth,  whose  bitter  fruit  is 
the  ever-deepening  degradation,  soul  and 
body,  of  the  poor — to  be  the  sin  that  cries  to 
God  Himself  for  vengeance ;  I,  whose  mental 
eyes,  piercing  the  illusions,  the  pretences,  the 


106     THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

deceptions  of  fashionable  life,  saw  beneath  the 
beautiful  velvet  skinned  fruit,  the  worm  that 
gnaws  its  core ;  even  I — I  say,  found  mind 
and  spirit  tempted,  trammelled,  enslaved  by 
the  flesh  whose  rapturous  potentialities  were 
a  perilous  revelation  to  me.  I  lounged  on 
soft  couches,  and  in  cushioned  carriages  :  I 
tasted  of  sybarite  dishes,  drank  deep  of  price- 
less vintages ;  dreamed  sensuous  dreams,  in- 
haling the  scented  smoke  of  Orient  weeds.  I 
revelled  in  sweet  music,  in  the  low,  trained 
voices  of  ladies;  while  my  eyes  feasted  on 
the  beauty  of  their  nude  white  throats  and 
arms.  I  turned  from  the  tinted  lamps,  and 
found  the  street  lamps  lurid  ;  I  stepped  from 
the  mansion's  velvets,  and  felt  the  street 
stones  hard.  All  this,  as  I  have  said,  in  apa- 
thetic unrealization,  almost  unconsciousness. 
I  awoke  with  a  start.  What  roused  me  ? 
A  young,  fair,  worn  an -face  ! 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     107 

The  feast  had  been  a  sumptuous  one.  I 
had  eaten  from  silver  plate,  and  drunk  from 
priceless  crystal.  Through  banks  of  odorous 
flowers  we  passed  to  the  salon.  The  tinted 
lights  were  lowered.  Languorous  lounges 
waited.  Ladies,  with  lash -veiled  eyes, 
smiled  welcome.  Behind  the  lashes  smoul- 
dered the  flame  of  siren-fires.  The  ladies 
were  only  women,  after  all.  Their  glowing 
lips,  their  fragrant  breaths,  their  caressing 
voices  mingled  with  the  glow  of  the  wine, 
the  scent  of  the  flowers,  the  subdued  amor- 
ous whisper  of  unseen  violins.  I  shut  my 
eyes,  shuddering  softly  with  sensuous  bliss 
and  pleasure,  as  one  yields  to  the  spell  and 
rapture  of  a  passionate  love-dream. 

When,  impelled  by  some  resistless  force, 
I  opened  my  eyes,  the  scene  was  changed, 
transformed.  I  asked  myself  if  I  had  slept, 
if  I  dreamed  still  ? 


108     THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

The  lowered  lights  were  brilliant;  the 
music  was  no  longer  amorous,  but  only  wist- 
ful, tender ;  the  languid  women  sat  erect  and 
stately  on  their  cushions ;  the  men,  one  and 
all,  had  leaped  to  reverent  feet;  while  up 
the  room  came  floating  like  a  vision,  a  girl 
whose  white  robes  trailed  like  angel- wings. 

I  heard  a  quick,  deep  breath  beside  me, 
and  turning,  looked  on  Harold.  The  angel  - 
wings  had  brushed  him  as  they  passed.  A 
gleam  of  their  white  radiance  still  lingered 
on  his  face.  A  flame  flashed  from  his  eyes 
fixed  on  her !  a  white  flame,  burning  purely 
from  his  pure  white  soul.  The  flame  of 
love  !  A  blind  man  would  have  recognized 
it.  So  help  me  God,  I  did  not  recognize  it, 
then  !  Blinded  I  was,  to  all  save  that  fair 
vision,  as  eyes  fixed  on  the  sunlight  are 
blinded  to  the  stars  ! 

She  was  fair  and  tall  and  slender.     Her 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     109 

hair  was  of  pale  gold,  like  a  veiled  sunbeam. 
"Her  eyes  were  blue,  gray-shadowed  ;  her  lips 
not  red,  but  pink.  Her  smile,  like  her  eyes, 
was  shadowed  with  sweet  graveness.  Her  face 
was  like  a  lily,  its  white  stained  by  no  blush. 

She  seemed  the  rhythm  of  motion  as  she 
passed  me.  She  did  not  walk — she  swayed 
on  her  white  wings.  Their  rustle,  soft  and 
silken,  encompassed  her.  Her  mien  was  like 
a  sweet,  proud,  gracious  queen's. 

I  stood  spell-bound,  and  watched  as  she 
was  greeted ;  heard  her  voice,  saw  her  smile, 
as  in  a  dream.  I  wakened  as  her  soft  hand 
sought  mine,  clasped  it.  I  dreamed  again — 
awoke.  We  were  alone. 

The  dance  had  opened  in  the  adjacent 
ball-room.  Couples  smiled  on  us,  circling  by 
the  doors.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  Harold- 
smiled,  forgot  him  ;  forgot  all  save  that  she 
was  speaking  to  me — she  ! 


110     THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

These  were  her  words  : 

"  You  were  a  great  man  when  you  wrote 
your  book.  You  are,  you  will  be — what  ? 
I  watched  you  from  afar,  with  lifted  eyes, 
while  your  path  soared  above  me.  Now,  it 
has  sunk  to  my  low  level.  Therefore  I 
speak.  The  poor  had  a  champion,  the 
powerless  a  protector,  the  wronged  a  de- 
fender and  avenger.  Where  is  he  ?  What 
will  they  do  without  him  ?  Wealth  and 
Power  have  taken  all  else  from  them.  Shall 
they  be  left  not  even  him  ? 

"He  eats  off  gold,  and  drinks  from  jewelled 
goblets,  while  the  poor  man  drains  the  death- 
draught  of  the  rum-shop's  poison,  and  the 
child  sucks  dry  its  starving  mother's  breast. 
He  rolls  by  in  sumptuous  carriages,  while  the 
wheels  grind  the  helpless  cripple,  and  the 
blooded  steeds  trample  the  aged  under  their 
cruel  feet.  He  dreams  on  soft  down-pillows 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     Ill 

while  the  homeless  faint  on  the  street  stones, 
and  the  sick  toss  and  shriek  with  anguish 
on  their  death-beds  of  rags  and  straw.  He 
walks  in  fine  attire,  while  the  daughters  of 
the  poor  go  naked ;  shameless,  because 
shame-steeped  from  pauper-cradle  to  Mag- 
dalen-grave. He  whiffs  rare  weeds,  and 
plays  with  ivory  billiards,  while  opium-den 
and  gamiug  -  table  ring  with  the  suicide's 
shrieks !  He  basks  in  the  smiles  of  fail- 
women,  while  the  shop-girl  is  lured  to  her 
ruin,  and  the  girl  of  the  street  leaps,  curs- 
ing, into  the  river's  grave.  He  drains  his 
cup  of  pleasure.  Its  lees — what  are  they? 
A  death-bed  prefiguring  hell's  worst  tor- 
ments— flaming  with  God's  just  vengeance, 
haunted  by  demon-spectres,  ringing  with  the 
everlasting  curses  of  lost  souls  he  might  have 
saved  !  " 

Her  voice  was  as  the  voice  of  my  own 


112     THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEK\. 

soul — as  the  voice  of  my  father,  as  the  voice 
of  the  poor,  whose  cause  I  had  betrayed.  I 
leaped  to  iny  feet  and  shrieked.  As  the 
dancers  rushed  in  from  the  ball-room.  I  burst 
into  burning  words.  I  know  not  what  I 
said,  but  I  saw  the  women  pale  and  shiver. 
The  men — Harold  sought  to  hush  me.  As 
well  seek  to  hush  the  demons  shrieking  at 

O 

hell's  red  mouth. 

Then  the  passion  passed,  and  a  gentler 
spell  was  on  me.  My  voice  grew  pleading, 
tender.  I  heard  myself,  as  one  unseen  and 
distant,  repeating  my  mother's  words : 

"  Hate  loses  causes  ;    Love  wins   them  !  " 

"  Love  wins  them  !  "  I  repeated. 

And  then  I  heard  a  single  word  re-echo- 
ing, "  Love  !  Love !  Love  !  " 


XIX. 

I  DO  not  know  whence  the  idea  first  came 
to  me — perhaps  my  mother's  spirit  hovered, 
whispering,  near — but  as  I  spoke  those 
woman- words  of  hers,  a  sudden  fierce  desire 
to  test  their  truth  overwhelmed  me.  Often 
as  they  had  recurred  to  me,  their  full 
significance  had  never  before  dawned  on 
me.  Now,  like  a  lightning  flash,  it  burst 
upon  me,  irradiating  all  that  had  before 
been  dark.  Love  was  the  solution  of  the 
unsolved  social  problem.  Love  the  answer 
to  the  unanswered  social  question  !  In  love 
alone  is  the  triumph  of  the  socialist's  nigh- 
lost  cause ! 

I  looked  at  the  men  —  the  gentlemen  — 
about  me. 


114     THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

"  Love,"  I  cried,  "  and  wed  in  honorable 
marriage  the  daughters  of  the  poor  !  " 

I  looked  at  the  fair  proud  ladies. 

"Love,"  I  pleaded,  "not.  the  gentlemen, 
but  the  men  of  the  world — the  toilers.  Into 
their  toil-stained  palms  put  your  white 
hands — lay  your  fair  heads  on  their  rugged 
bosoms — let  their  strong  rough  arms  close 
round  you  like  knights'  steel  shields.  Be 
their  sweethearts  first,  and  their  wives  after. 
Bring  forth  their  strong  -  limbed  children. 
Be  mothers  to  a  new,  heroic  race !  The 
human  race  is  degenerating,  for  the  lack  of 
a  new  graft  on  it.  The  sap  of  the  old  stock 
dwindles,  and  ebbs  to  lees  and  dregs.  Mix 
the  crimson  blood  of  the  workman  with  the 
white  breast-milk  of  the  lady,  and  look  to 
the  veins  these  blend  in  for  virile  life  and 
strength.  Should  the  masses  wake  to  their 
need,  they  will  pounce  like  wolves  on  the 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     115 

classes,  draining  the  blood  of  the  gentlemen, 
feasting  in  brutish  fury  on  the  ladies'  white 
breasts  and  limbs.  Already  wolf-teeth  are 
gnashing.  While  time  is  yours,  use  it  wise- 
ly. Turn  the  wolves  into  lambs  by  caresses, 

0  fair  woman-arms  and  hands-!  " 

I  said  far  more,  but  what,  I  know  not. 
My  passion,  like  a  great  wave,  engulfed  me. 
When  I  re-rose  to  the  surface  of  conscious- 
ness, I  was  sounding  the  personal  note. 

"  The  time,"  I  was  saying,  "  for  words  and 
preaching  is  over :  the  time  for  deed  and 
practice  come.  But  a  man  cannot  start  the 
ball,  singly ;  a  woman  must  nerve  his  hand. 

1  stand  forth,  I,  the  son  of  a  toiler,  and  chal- 
lenge  you  rich   fair   ladies — challenge   you 
hand  and  heart.     If  there  be  one  noble  wom- 
an  among   you,  let   her    come   forth    here, 
now,  before  you  all — and  place  her  hand  in 
mine.     A  man  alone,  I  lose  my  cause.     Man 


116  THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

and  woman,  we  shall  win  it.  It  is  the  cause 
of  Christ,  the  cause  of  the  human,  the  cause 
of  the  poor  and  oppressed,  of  the  suffering 
and  the  sinning.  Who  shall  be  the  woman 
to  espouse  and  win  it  ?  Who  ? — Who  ?  " 

In  the  tense  silence,  I  heard  a  tremulous 
breath  beside  me,  then  a  rustle  as  of  soft 
wings  opening.  Then  slowly,  shyly,  yet 
resolutely,  a  white  hand  fluttered  into  mine. 

"  I  will  be  the  woman,"  a  sweet  voice  quiv- 
ered. "/ — will  be  the  woman." 

"  Mary  ! "  I  heard  them  shudder.  "  Mary ! " 

"  Mary  !  "  cried  Harold. 

He  staggered  toward  her,  then  turned 
away  with  a  moan,  as  the  stag  moans,  reel- 
ing, sinking,  with  the  death-dart  in  its  heart. 

As  he  turned,  I  caught  sight  of  his  face 
— the  beautiful,  tender,  wistful  face,  strong, 
yet  gentle  —  stern,  yet  sweet.  His  noble 
brow  was  dewed  as  with  death  •  agony  ;  his 


TUE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     117 

luminous  eyes  shadowed  with  untold  pain. 
His  lips  were  clinched — brave,  mute  things 
racked  with  anguish  ;  his  face  was  wan,  as 
with  the  chill  of  death. 

But  its  pain,  its  sorrow,  its  bitter  grief 
were  nothing.  The  horror  on  it — that  was 
the  look  that  scorched  me.  It  will  haunt  me 
in  life — it  will  haunt  me  in  death,  it  will 
haunt  nie  in  my  grave. 


XX. 

THE  days  that  followed  sped  by  on  wings 
of  fire — not  the  fire  of  love,  belie ve  it  or  not, 
as  you  will ;  but  the  fire  of  remorse,  the  fire 
of  self-scorn,  the  fire  of  renewed  passionate 
allegiance  to  the  cause  I  had  well-nigh  failed 
— a  fire  fed  by  the  woman-hand  that  had 
re-kindled  the  flickering  flame. 

I  had  known  her  to  be,  by  love's  right, 
Harold's,  since  that  look  of  awful  horror  had 
dawned  upon  his  face.  I  had  seen  the  same 
look,  once  before,  on  the  face  of  a  captive 
plainsman,  whose  pure  young  sweetheart  was 
"  staked  out "  by  the  Indians  before  his 
shuddering  eyes.  He  died  mad.  Had  Har- 
old done  the  same  ?  We  never  saw  him— 
she  or  I.  Without  a  word  or  sign,  he  had 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     119 

disappeared.  Mad  or  sane,  I  knew  that  he 
had  been  dealt  his  death-hurt.  Perhaps,  as  a 
wounded  animal  seeks  its  lair,  he  had  crept 
off  alone  to  die. 

By  my  open  grave,  I  swear  it — I  did  not 
betray  him,  my  friend,  through  love  !  Had 
she  been  to  me  but  the  mere  woman,  I  would 
have  surrendered  her,  however  great  the 
pain.  But  she  was  far  more  than  the  woman 
to  me — she  was  the  hope,  the  salvation,  the 
triumph  of  the  cause  I  had  sworn  to  serve. 
She  was  fair  and  sweet  and  luring ;  yet 
knowing  her  loved  by  Harold,  I  would  have 
left  her  to  him,  I  swear  it,  had  another  of  her 
social  class  stood  forth  to  take  her  place ! 
But  of  all  those  fair  fine  ladies,  not  one  but 
had  crouched  and  shuddered  from  my  out- 
stretched hand.  She  alone  had  stepped  for- 
ward to  take  it ;  she  alone  had  responded  to 
my  appeal. 


120     THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 
"  /  will  be  the  woman  !  " 

« 

O,  shy  soft  words !  O,  strong,  grand 
words  !  O,  noble,  heroic,  sacrificial,  God-in- 
spired words  !  "  /  will  le  the  woman  !  " 
not  the  woman  for  the  man,  but  the  woman 
for  mankind — mankind  that  means  not  toil- 
ing men  alone,  but  worn  and  weary  women, 
and  starving  children  ! 

In  behalf  of  these,  I  could  not  let  her  go  ! 
In  fancy  I  saw  them  thronging,  day  and 
night,  about  her ;  sweat-soaked  laborers  clam- 
oring for  their  hire;  wasted  women  with 
skeleton-hands  outstretched  ;  old-faced  chil- 
dren stunted  by  starvation  and  toil,  clinging 
with  bleeding  hands,  crying  with  starving 
lips,  to  her  !  She  was  their  hope — and  not 
theirs  alone,  but  the  hope  of  the  countless 
generations  of  toilers  who  should  follow 
them.  I  was  not  mad  enough  to  dream  that 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     121 

she,  the  hope,  was  likewise  its  fulfilment — 
that  our  marriage  consummated,  the  social 
millennium  would  ensue.  The  full  flower 
blooms  not  from  the  seed,  but  from  the  bud ; 
but  the  bud  is  the  fruit  of  the  seed,  the  seed 
the  fruit  of  the  germ ;  and  to  be  the  germ  of 
a  royal  flower,  is  it  not  indeed  to  be,  though 
indirectly,  the  royal  flower  itself  ? 

I  gazed  into  the  future,  and  saw  the  count- 
less couples  who  would  follow  in  our  steps: 
brawny  men  and  dainty  ladies — gentlemen 
refined,  like  Harold,  with  girls  like  Nan, 
their  brides.  Of  these  should  come  forth  a 
mixed  race,  virile,  healthful ;  born  free  and 
equal,  Titan-brained,  as  limbed.  And  these 
should  look  back  and  call  her,  their  mother, 
"blessed"— as  we  call  her,  who  bore  man's 
first  hope — Christ ! 

They  named  her  well,  who  made  her  too,  a 
Mary.  She  was  a  virgin,  white  and  cold  as 


122     THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

snow.     She  knew  no  thought  either  of  love 

O 

or  lover.  Her  imawakened  heart  was  with 
the  sick  and  poor.  Day  after  day  we  trod 
the  slums  together.  She  saw  the  suffering, 
blinded  to  the  sin.  Her  calm  gaze  met  the 
leer  of  vice,  and  shamed  it;  she  called  the 
Magdalen  sister,  and  hushed  vile  curses  with 
pure  prayers.  She  saw  in  each  man,  Christ; 
in  each  woman,  Mary.  In  the  little  chil- 
dren I  think  that  she  saw  both.  In  scenes 
of  hell  she  saw  the  road  to  heaven  ;  and 
where  she  lingered,  heaven,  indeed,  came 
near. 

Our  wedding-day  approached.  I  wished 
the  deed  done,  and  she  acquiesced.  I  think, 
albeit,  she  scarcely  realized  it,  her  thoughts 
being  all  for  others,  that  in  the  meantime  she 
was  far  from  happy.  She  was  an  orphan, 
and  of  age,  therefore  quite  independent; 
nevertheless  her  whilom  guardians,  with 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     123 

whom  she  lived,  did  all  in  human  power,  as 
did  all  her  aristocratic  friends,  to  prevent 
our  marriage.  She  went  on  with  her  prep- 
arations, apparently  heedless  of  their  taunts 
and  reproaches ;  yet  the  sting  of  them 
rankled  in  her  girlish  heart,  I  think,  as  her 
wedding-day  approached.  Her  face  grew 
paler,  her  clear  eyes  shadowed,  troubled.  I 
think  she  felt  a  pathetic  maidenly  longing, 
in  that  transition-period  of  her  life,  for  wom- 
anly sympathy,  tenderness,  love. 

More  than  once  it  struck  me  too,  that  she 
missed  some  one  friend's  presence.  Fre- 
quently, I  caught  a  wistful  look  in  her  eyes 
as  they  scanned  her  crowded  drawing-room, 
a  stilled  sigh  in  her  voice  as  she  bade  her 
guests  good-night.  Well  I  knew  in  my  heart, 
that  the  friend  she  missed  was  Harold.  She 
never  mentioned  his  name  to  me.  "  It  was  by 
her  silence  that  I  knew. 


124:     THE   U'OJ/.iJV   117/0  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

Our  wedding  was  to  be  a  grand  one. 
Evening  after  evening  she  planned  it,  turn- 
ing the  pages  of  "  Aurora  Leigh."  She 
looked  child-soft  and  gentle,  sitting  so ;  and 
yet  she  had  the  most  heroic  courage — the 
courage  of  her  convictions.  Her  friends  had 
begged  her,  if  she  would  disgrace  them  by 
this  marriage,  at  least  to  marry  privately.  I 
think  it  was  in  loyalty  to  me,  as  well  as  in 
public  espousal  of  our  cause,  that  she  deter- 
mined upon  a  grand  church-wedding. 

"The  things  we  do, 
We  do ;  we'll  wear  no  mask,  as  if  we  blushed," 

she  said. 


XXL 

Two  months  from  the  night  upon  which  I 
had  first  met  her,  I  ascended  the  steps  of  her 
house,  for  the  last  time  as  a  guest.  The 
next  day  I  would  enter  with  her,  its  mas- 
ter. To-night  her  lover,  to-morrow  her  hus- 
band !  It  was  the  eve  of  our  wedding-day. 

As  I  waited  to  be  admitted,  it  seemed  as 
if,  for  the  first  time,  I  realized  all  that  the 
impending  change  implied.  A  sudden  blur 
and  dizziness  seemed  to  come  upon  me.  I 
walked  toward  the  little  reception-room  in 
which,  when  alone,  she  had  been  in  the  habit 
of  receiving  me,  as  one  walks  in  a  dream. 
To-morrow  my  wife  !  and  up  to  that  night— 
I  say  it  truthfully — I  had  scarcely  touched 
her  hand. 


126     THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

She  entered  the  room,  slowly,  almost 
timidly.  She  was  very  pale;  there  were 
traces  of  tears  on  her  face ;  her  lips  were 
tremulous,  her  unsmiling  eyes  shyly  lowered. 
For  days  I  had  noticed  a  look  of  increasing 
fear  in  them.  Now  that  the  white  lids 
veiled  them,  I  recognized,  with  a  pang  of 
tender  pity,  the  intuitive,  uncomprehended 
fear  of  her  startled  virgin  heart. 

All  to  which  I  had  hitherto  been  blind 
and  deaf  and  insensible,  burst  upon  me  like 
a  lightning-flash.  I  was  no  longer  the  social 
reformer,  but  the  man ;  no  longer  the  im- 
personal tool  and  instrument,  but  the  living, 
passionate  lover.  For  the  first  and  last  time 
in  my  life,  my  blood  asserted  itself — the  blood 
traced  back  to  savage  chiefs  who,  finding  a 
maiden  fair,  had  seized  and  borne  her,  heed- 
less of  shrieks  and  struggles,  to  their  huts  in 
the  Riesengebirge,  haunt  of  the  savage  Van- 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     127 

dal  tribes.  A  thrill  half  bliss,  half  pain, 
quivered  through  me ;  a  heat,  as  of  sudden 
flame,  compassed  me.  The  surge  of  fevered 
blood  rang  in  my  ears.  I  leaped  to  my  feet 
and — looked  at  her — only  looked  at  her  ! 

As  her  drooped  eyes,  lifting,  met  my  look, 
she  stopped  short  in  her  approach,  and  with 
a  shuddering  cry,  shrank  back ;  but  she  was 
too  late,  too  late  !  My  passionate  arms  were 
around  her.  My  passionate  kisses  rained 
upon  her  brow,  cheek,  throat ;  then  fell,  in 
burning  shower,  on  her  lips.  Against  my 
breast  I  felt  her  shy  heart  beating.  She  re- 
sisted, cried  out,  struggled;,  then  was  sud- 
denly still.  My  impulse  spent,  I  turned  her 
face  from  my  breast,  and  looked  at  her. 
She  was  white,  chill,  rigid.  She  had  fainted 
in  my  arms. 

I  laid  her  on  the  lounge,  and  bent,  gloat- 
ing, over  her.  In  her  youth,  her  purity,  her 


128     THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

pride,  her  dainty  beauty,  mine,  mine,  till 
mine !  By  a  terrible  oath  whose  hellish 
menace  roused  her,  I  swore  that  no  other 
man,  no  gentleman,  should  ever  take  her 
from  me !  The  oath  was  born  of  the  pre- 
monition that  in  spite  of  her  promise,  in  spite 
of  my  kisses,  in  spite  of  the  oath  itself,  I 
had  lost  her !  that  though  to-night  was  our 
wedding-eve,  the  morrow  would  never  dawn 
whose  dusk  should  see  her  my  wife. 

As  she  revived,  I  stepped  out  of  her  sight. 
Her  eyes  opened  ;  she  looked  about  her,  con- 
fused and  questioning.  Then  she  remem- 
bered. With  a  startled  moan  she  hid  her 
face  in  her  hands.  Between  the  tense  white 
fingers  I  saw  the  scorching  surge  from  throat 
to  brow  of  modest  vestal  blood. 

When  she  discovered  my  presence  she  rose 
from  the  lounge,  and  took  a  step  toward  me. 
The  vestal  blood  had  ebbed  again ;  her  face 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     129 

was  white  as  marble — no  longer  the  face  of 
a  dreamful,  shrinking  girl,  but  the  face  of  a 
woman,  tense  for  battle  to  the  death. 

"  Forgive  me,"  she  said,  "  O,  forgive  me, 
but  I  cannot  marry  you  !  When  I  gave  my 
reckless  promise,  I  did  not  realize  or  under- 
stand. It  seemed  to  me  a  great  thing,  a 
grand  thing,  to  step  out  before  that  gilded 
throng,  and  yield  myself  up,  like  a  live-offer- 
ing to  the  altar,  in  the  name  of  the  poor  and 
<1<  >\vn-trodden.  What  the  yielding  up  meant, 
not  to  the  impersonal  sacrifice,  but  to  the  liv- 
ing personal  woman,  I  did  not  then  conceive. 
But  for  the  last  fortnight  terrible  thoughts 

o  o 

have  haunted  me — thoughts  whose  full  sig- 
nificance burst  upon  me  when,  a  moment  ago, 
you  held  me  in  your  arms.  I  shuddered  in 
them.  Forgive  me,  but  I — I  sickened  in  them. 

o  * 

O,  Otho,  I  have  wronged  you  sorely,  cruelly; 
yet  I  beg  you,  I  pray  you  to  have  pity  on 


130     THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

me !  I  will  dedicate  my  life  to  the  service 
of  your  cause — I  will  strive  for  it  day  and 
night ;  I  will  be  your  friend,  your  co-worker, 
your  servant,  your  slave  !  But  I  cannot  be 
your  wife,  Otlio — I  cannot  be  your  wife  !  " 

She  was  wringing  her  white  hands,  and 
sobbing  nervously,  fearlessly.  The  shame 
and  anguish  on  her  face  would  have  softened 
the  heart  of  a  gentleman.  It  hardened  mine. 

"  I  have  your  promise,"  I  cried,  "  your 
public  promise.  In  honor,  in  common  jus- 
tice, it  binds  you  to  me.  I  hold  you  to  it. 
I  refuse  to  release  you.  You  shall  marry 
me  to-morrdw ! " 

"  I  cannot  be  your  wife  ! "  she  repeated. 

The  devil  possessed  me. 

"  You  cannot  be  my  wife  ?  "  I  hissed. 
"  Then  why  does  my  hand  know  the  clasp  of 
your  hand,  why  have  my  arms  held  you,  win- 
has  my  breast  felt  the  beating  of  your  heart 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     131 

against  it— why,  even  now,  do  iny  kisses 
burn  your  face  and  throat  and  lips  ?  You 
cannot  be  my  wife  ?  Then  why  have  I  been 
your  lover  ?  Are  you  not  the  pure  white 
thing  you  look  ?  Are  you  only  a  whited 
sepulchre  ?  You  are  beautiful.  You  were 
born  for  love.  Out  of  all  the  world  of  men 
you  have  chosen  your  lover — you  must  abide 
by  your  choice.  Between  you  and  any  other 
honest  love  stand  my  kisses,  even  as  I  stand 
between  you  and  any  other  man.  I  tell  you 
that  you  are  mine  !  mine  !  By  right  of  love, 
as  well  as  by  right  of  promise,  I  claim  you 
for  my  wife  !  " 

"  I  cannot  be  your  wife  !  "  she  answered. 
"  If  you  loved  me  you  would  not  wish  it 
against  my  will.  My  promise  was  a  mistake, 
Otho.  I  did  not  understand,  or  realize,  what 
it  meant.  I  have  been  a  dreamer,  always  a 
dreamer  !  and  my  dreams  have  been  not  like 


132     TJIK   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

the  dreams  of  other  girls,  of  love  and  lovers; 
but  dreams  like  yours,  abstract,  impersonal- 
dreams  of  human  progress,  of  social  revolu- 
tion and  reform.  When  I  read  your  book  it 
thrilled,  like  a  grand  chord,  through  me. 
My  soul,  my  brain,  responded.  I  mistook 
them  for  my  heart.  When  I  saw  you,  met 
you,  pleaded  with  you  not  to  forget  your  mis- 
sion— when  your  sleeping  soul  awoke  like  a 
lion,  and  I  saw  the  royal  thing  I  had  aroused 
— when  your  grand  appeal,  god-voiced,  rang 
divinely,  and  you  waited  vainly  for  one 
woman  to  respond — I,  dreaming  still  of 
ideals,  not  realities,  stepped  forth  and  gave 
the  promise  I  know  now  I  cannot  keep." 

"  Why  can  you  not  keep  it  ?  "  I  demanded. 

"  Because   I   do  not   love   you,"   she   fal- 
tered. 

"  You   lie  !  "    I   cried.      "  You   fail   your 
promise,  not   because  you  do  not  love  me— 


THE  WOMAN  WUO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     133 

your  promised  husband,  O,  fair  false  wom- 
an !  but  because  you  love  another." 

Her  burning  blush  was  her  answer. 

"  Harold  !  "  I  hissed,  "  Harold !  " 

"  Spare  me  !  "  she  sobbed. 

A  fierce  exultation  was  in  my  heart.  I 
saw  that  she  thought  her  love  in  vain. 

"He  is  gone,"  I  jeered,  pitilessly.  "Love 
did  not  keep  him  with  you.  If  in  farewell 
he  left  one  single  love-word  for  you,  I  will 
yield  you  to  his  arms." 

She  hid  her  face  in  her  hands.  Through 
her  fingers  her  tears  trickled. 

"  Not  one  ! ''  she  moaned.     "  Not  one  !  " 

"  And  you  have  no  pride — no  girlish 
modesty,  no  womanly  self  -  respect  ?  You 
avow  your  love  for  a  man  who  does  not  love 
you  \  O,  shame  !  shame  !  shame  !  " 

Her  answer  was  the  woman's  answer — pa- 
tient, faithful,  self -forgetful. 


134     THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

il  I  love  him,"  she  sobbed.     "  I  love  him  !  " 

A  fiend  of  malice  possessed  me.  I  caught 
her  in  my  fierce  arms,  laughing  as  she  shud- 
dered in  them — triumphing  in  her  cruel  tor- 
ture, as  I  spoke  on. 

"  You  are  mine,"  I  exulted.  "  To-night, 
my  sweetheart ;  to-morrow  my  wife  !  You 
will  never  be  his — his  whom  you  love,  his — 
who  loves  you  !  " 

"  You  start,  you  did  not  know  of  his  love ! 
You  struggle — vainly  as  a  white  bird  in  the 
net.  Your  lover's  arms  are  around  you— 
your  lover's  to-night,  to-morrow  your  hus- 
band's! Yes,  he  loves  you.  He  has  loved 
you  for  years  and  years.  But  he  is  no  com- 
mon flesh-and-blood  man,  to  claim  the  woman 
he  loves,  because  he  loves  her.  He  is  a  gen- 
tleman— who  waits  on  his  lady's  mood  like  a 
slave  on  his  mistress.  You  were  '  happy  in 
your  girlhood's  dream,'  he  said.  He  would 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     135 

not  disturb  it.  He  waited,  as  those  dying 
of  thirst  wait  for  water,  till  you  should 
waken  from  it.  He  told  his  heart  to  me,  be- 
cause I  was  his  friend.  He  yearned  not  only 
for  the  sweetheart,  but  for  the  wife,  the 
home,  the  children.  '  Sweetheart !  wife  ! 
home  maker  !  mother  !  '  he  cried  ;  *  when 
shall  my  dream  come  true  ? '  You  betrayed 
him.  I  did  not.  I  did  not  ask  you  to  put 
your  hand  in  mine.  But  since  you  chose  to 
put  it  in  mine  unasked,  I  hold  it,  I  keep  it. 
I  claim  it,  do  you  hear  me  ?  Of  you,  a  small, 
frail  woman,  I  claim  it,  I,  a  man !  Yield, 
beloved,  yield  !  You  have  given  your  word 
—stand  by  it.  You  shall  never  regret  it. 
I,  your  lover,  have  played  your  master.  I, 
your  husband,  will  be  your  slave.  You  may 
do  with  me  as  you  will — make  of  me  angel 
or  devil.  See  !  I  throw  myself  at  your  feet. 
On  my  knees  I  beg  your  hand.  Women 


136     THE  WOMAN   WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

like  you  are  loyal :  your  heart,  your  love 
will  follow  it.  Only  marry  me  to-inorrow  ! 
To-morrow  be  ruy  wife  !  " 

"  I  cannot  be  your  wife  !  "  she  shuddered. 
"  I  would  rather  die." 

Fateful  words,  inspired  of  devils,  why  did 
God  let  her  utter  them  ?  " 


XXII. 

I  MADE  my  way  to  my  room  in  a  daze  of 
passionate  emotion.  I  loved  her — and  I  had 
lost  her.  Full  well  I  knew  that  neither  the 
morrow,  nor  any  after-morrow  would  ever 
make  her  my  wife  !  Yet  before  I  left  her 
I  had  extracted  her  promise  to  let  the  farce 
of  bridal  preparation  go  on  even  to  the 
end. 

"  Grant  me  at  least  love's  whim,"  I  said. 
"  Come  to  me  here,  a  quarter  before  the  ap- 
pointed church-hour,  in  your  bridal  veil.  I 
will  trust  to  your  heart,  to  your  honor,  to  re- 
deem your  word.  If  at  the  last  moment 
you  fail  me,  I  will  submit,  but  not  until 
then.  I  beg  you,  grant  me  this  favor.  It 
is  the  least  that  I  may  claim." 


138  THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

"I  will  grant  you  it,"  she  said,  "but — I 
shall  fail  you.  I  cannot  be  your  wife  !  " 

She  did  not  repeat  that  she  would  rather 
die  than  be  my  wife,  but  no  repetition  was 
necessary.  The  words,  once  said,  were  said 
for  always.  They  were  ringing  in  my  ears 
as  I  entered  my  room. 

The  gas  was  lighted,  and  a  vase  of  flowers 
stood  before  my  mirror.  The  woman  who 
cared  for  the  room  had  placed  them  there,  in 
honor  of  my  wedding-eve.  Upon  my  bed 
lay  my  wedding-suit,  fresh  from  the  hands 
of  a  fashionable  Fifth  Avenue  tailor.  I 
passed  it  by  with  a  single  glance,  and  went 
to  my  desk.  Touching  a  spring,  I  opened  a 
secret  drawer,  and  took  from  its  dark  recess 
my  father's  dagger.  I  drew  it  from  its 
sheath,  and  passed  its  keen  edge  caressingly 
along  my  palm.  Re-sheathing  it,  I  took 
the  suit  from  the  bed,  and  slipped  the  dag- 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     139 

ger  into  the  breast-pocket  of  my  wedding- 
coat  Then,  dressed  as  I  was,  I  flung  myself 
full-length  upon  my  bed,  and  slept  deeply, 
heavily,  until  morning. 

The  morning  of  my  wedding-day  ! 


XXIII. 

WE  were   to  be   married   at   hio;h   noon. 

O 

On  the  stroke  of  the  half  before  the  noon 
hour,  I  entered  my  carriage  and  was  driven 
to  her  home.  On  the  way  I  passed  the 
church  chosen  for  the  ceremony.  A  line  of 
carriages  was  already  drawing  up  before  it. 
I  caught  a  confused  sight  of  prancing  steeds 
and  showy  liveries  and  gorgeously  gowned 
guests,  as  I  passed.  Both  streets  and  side- 
walks were  blocked  by  a  struggling  human 
mass  of  the  "  unwashed  "  type.  I  saw  the 
policemen  draw  their  clubs  as  I  drove  past 
them. 

The  servant  who  opened  the  door  stared 
and  smiled  scornfully,  yet  indulgently,  as  he 
admitted  me.  Evidently  he  Avas  surprised 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     141 

at  my  appearance,  and  attributed  it  to  my 
ignorance  of  social  proprieties  as  well  as  to 
the  proverbial  impatience  of  love.  I  heard 
the  voices  of  the  bridesmaids  in  the  drawing- 
room,  and  knew,  by  love's  unerring  instinct, 
that  my  darling  was  among  them.  Then  my 
heart  gave  a  leap,  as  a  man's  familiar  voice 
sounded — a  low,  rich  voice,  my  friend's  voice, 
Harold's ! 

A  long  hall,  a  room  in  itself,  separated  the 
apartments.  I  heard  a  soft  step  upon  it,  the 
rustle  of  silken  robes  along  its  floor.  Then 
she  stood  before  me,  the  fair  sweet  woman  I 
loved — who  in  an  hour,  or  never,  would  be 
my  wife !  I  took  an  eager  step  toward 
her,  but  she  motioned  me  back,  imperious- 
ly. Pure  as  a  pearl  in  the  white  setting  of 
her  wedding  dress,  she  awed  me.  Her  veil 
seemed  folded  round  her,  like  an  angel's 
wing. 


142     THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEK.Y. 

"  I  have  kept  my  promise,"  she  said.  "  I 
have  gratified  your  whim.  As  you  desired, 
you  see  me  in  my  wedding-dress.  Now  we 
must  part.  As  I  warned  you,  I  must  fail 
you.  I  am  a  coward,  traitor,  what  you  will. 
No  hard  name  is  too  hard  for  me.  From  my 
heart,  I  regret  my  wrong  against  you.  But 
I  cannot  be  your  wife  !  " 

Again  she"  waved  me  back,  but  this  time  I 
defied  her.  I  caught  her  two  white  hands 
in  mine,  and  drew  her,  by  force,  to  me. 

"  I  love  you,"  I  panted  ;  "  I  love  you  !  not 
with  the  brute  passion  you  fear,  and  from 
which  you  shrink  and  shudder,  but  \vith  the 
man's  love,  pure  and  strong  and  tender — the 
love  of  the  reverent  lover,  of  the  fond  and 
faithful  husband.  If  I  am  not  a  gentleman, 
you  shall  make  me  one.  I  will  do  by  you 
as  nobly  as  a  king  does  by  his  queen.  Do 
not  doubt  me !  Do  not  fear  me !  Trust 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     143 

me.  You  shall  never  regret  your  trust — I 
swear  it !  In  love's  name,  in  honor's  name, 
in  the  name  of  the  human  world  whose  voice 
of  hopeless  anguish  cries  out  to  you,  fulfil 
your  promise,  sweetheart.  Be  my  wife  !  " 

"  I  cannot  be  your  wife  !  "  she  sobbed. 

"  Listen  !  "  I  cried,  "  I  passed  the  church 
as  I  drove  here.  The  carriage-guests  were 
arriving: ;  the  foot-guests  blocked  their 

o   *  O 

wheels.  The  policemen,  with  cruel  clubs, 
beat  back  the  poor  and  helpless.  I  saw  a 
white-haired  old  woman  crouch  beneath  a 
blow,  and  heard  a  poor  child  sob.  You 
know  what  our  marriage  means  to  such  as 

O 

these — the  rift  in  their  web  of  wrongs — the 
wedge  which,  sooner  or  later,  shall  over- 
throw the  social  structure  which  is  an  out- 
rage to  humanity,  a  shame  to  democracy,  as 
it  now  stands.  If  you  fail  them,  who  will 
be  their  champion  ?  No  other  woman,  so 


144:     THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

help    me    God !    for  if    you   are   false,    all 
women  are  betrayers  !     I  will  speak  no  more 
of  love.     Love  is  well,  but   there  is  some- 
thing better — duty.     Your  duty  to  these— 
fulfil  it !     Be  my  wife !  " 

"  I  cannot  be  your  wife  !  "  she  moaned. 

"  You  shall  be  my  wife  !  "  I  hissed.  "  I 
say  you  shall  be,  you  shall  be  !  " 

The  words  aroused  her  high,  if  gentle, 
spirit.  Her  hands  were  passive  in  mine — she 
scorned  the  futile  struggle  to  release  them ; 
but  her  mute  eyes,  lifted  suddenly,  defied  me. 

lt  I  will  not  be  your  wife,''  she  said, 
"  though  you  drag  me  by  brute  force  to  the 
altar.  I  have  done  you  a  cruel  wrong — I 
bitterly  regret  it.  But  my  regret  is  as  vain 
as  is  your  ungenerous  persistence.  Nothing 
can  undo  the  past ;  but  the  past  does  not 
control  the  future.  Because  I  have  made 
one  terrible  mistake,  I  will  not  make  a  worse 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     H5 

one.  I  beg,  I  insist,  that  this  painful  inter- 
view now  be  ended.  My  decision  is  final. 
I  will  not  be  your  wife." 

I  do  not  know  what  betrayed  her  secret 
as  she  spoke  the  words,  whether  her  uncon- 
scious emphasis  as  she  said  "  your  "  wife,  or 
her  sudden  blush,  or  a  tell-tale  fla.^h  in  her 
eyes  of  Love's  shy  happiness.  I  only  know 
that  I  divined  it.  Mechanically  my  hand 
stole  to  my  breast.  The  hilt  of  the  dagger 
met  it.  As  my  hand  shut  on  it,  I  pressed 
her  closer  to  me.  So  we  stood,  for  one 
mute  moment.  Then  I  spoke. 

"  You  will  not  be  my  wife,"  I  said,  "  and 
yet — this  is  your  wedding-day  ?  " 

She  glanced  up,  surprised  and  startled  at 
my  keen  question.  I  felt  her  tremble,  as 
she  hesitated.  Then  she  decided,  I  think, 
that  it  was  my  right  to  hear  the  truth. 

"  Otho  !  "  she  sobbed,  "forgive  me  !  I  told 


146  THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

you  that  I  love  him.  You  told  me  that  he 
— loves — me.  When  I  said  that  he  left 
no  word  of  love  behind  him,  I  spoke  the 
truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth.  He  had  left 
me,  with  his  address,  this  single  line  in  mes- 
sage :  '  WJien  you  need  a  friend,  remember 
that  I  live  but  to  serve  you  ! '  Last  night, 
after  you  left,  I — I  wrote  to  him.  He  came 
this  morning.  He  told  me  that  you  spoke 
truly  —  that  he  loves  me,  that  he  fled  lest 
his  love  should  betray  itself  to  the  affianced 
wife  of  his  friend.  Then  I  asked  him— 
you  hear  me,  Otho? — /asked  him,  begged 
him,  prayed  him  on  my  knees,  to  marry 
me,  in  your  place,  to-day ! — then,  to  take 
me  far  away  —  out  of  sight  and  sound  of 
the  wondering  crowd,  the  mocking  laughs, 
the  curious  faces!  He  grants  my  request 
only  on  condition  that  you,  his  friend,  my 
affianced  husband,  second  it  by  your  con- 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     147 

sent : — not  otherwise  !  His  love  is  strong, 
but  his  honor  is  stronger.  Otho,  you  are  a 
man ;  the  strength,  the  power,  is  on  your 
side.  Be  generous,  be  noble,  be  chivalrous, 
be  a  gentleman  !  I  love  him  —  he  loves 
me.  Give  us  to  each  other !  Give  me  my 
husband  !  Give  your  friend  his  wife  ! " 

My  hand  shut  closer  on  the  dagger-hilt.  I 
felt  the  sharp  blade  slipping  from  its  sheath. 

"  Sweetheart !  "  I  pleaded,  "  I  love  you. 
I  can  yield  you  to  no  other  lover.  You  are 
rny  promised  wife.  The  church  is  crowded 
with  guests,  the  minister  waits.  The  time  is 
come  to  fulfil  your  promise.  Be  my  wife  ! " 

"  I  will  never  be  your  wife,"  she  replied, 
no  longer  gently,  but  with  cold,  proud  scorn. 
"  I — would — rather — die  !  " 

The  next  moment — I  know  not  how  it 
happened — the  dagger  was  buried  hilt-deep 
in  her  heart. 


XXIV. 

THE  blow  was  swift  and  sure.  A  low 
rnoan,  heard  by  me  alone,  was  the  only  sign 
she  gave,  as  heavily  upon  my  arm  she  sank 
back,  dying.  Then  I  realized  what  I  had 
done.  With  desperate  haste,  I  lowered  her 
to  the  floor,  and,  tearing  open  her  bridal- 
bodice,  groped  for  the  wound.  The  beauti- 
ful full  white  breast  was  still  life-warm ; 
under  my  passionate  hand  I  felt  its  soft  flesh 
shudder.  As  my  fingers  touched  the  gaping 
wound,  I  caught  up  the  reeking  dagger,  slit- 
ting corset  and  lace  and  linen  with  its 
blood-stained  blade.  Then,  with  futile  hands, 
I  strove  to  stanch  the  flow  of  virginal  life- 
blood.  Red  and  warm,  red  and  warm,  it 
oozed  between  the  edges  of  the  wound, 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     149 

despite  the  pressure  of  my  trembling  fin- 
gers. I  watched  the  slow,  sure  flow  with 
awful  fascination.  It  dyed  my  finger-tips, 
mounted  slowly  toward  my  palm.  Soon,  to 
its  wrist,  my  hand  was  steeped  in  blood. 
My  murderer's  hand  !  As  I  wrested  it  from 
her  breast  with  a  shuddering  cry  of  horror, 
her  glazing  eyes  unclosed. 

"  Harold  !  "  she  gasped,  "  Harold  !  "   and 
with  one  sigh,  was  dead. 


XXV. 

I  KNOW  not  when  they  came,  or  who  first 
discovered  us.  I  think  it  was  a  woman's 
shriek  that  first  pierced  the  lethargy  of  my 
death-like  trance.  I  felt  myself  torn  from 
her,  and  saw  them  shudder  from  me.  Sud- 
denly, between  me  and  her,  flashed  a  man's 
tall  figure.  He  sunk  on  his  knees  and  draw- 
ing the  bodice  over  the  fair  nude  bosom, 
pressed  his  lips,  with  tender  reverence,  to 
her  chill  white  brow. 

"  Thank  God  !  "  I  heard  him  murmur. 
"Thank  God!" 

As  he  lifted  his  face,  no  trace  of  the  old 
horror  was  upon  it — a  chastened  life-long 
sorrow  was  in  its  place. 


THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     151 

To  him,  as  to  her,  the  thought  of  her  in 
my  arms  had  been  so  loathsome,  that  the 
skeleton  arms  of  Death,  in  contrast,  were 
welcome,  sweet. 


XXVI. 

THIS  pain — in  my  heart.  Brandy,  quick  ! 
— What  if  I  cheat  Justice — even  yet  ?— 
But  no  !  it  passes — 

Better  ?     Oh,  yes,  better — worse  luck  ! 

More  visitors  ?  But,  yes,  I  had  forgotten 
that  all  must  come  to-night,  if  ever.  To- 
morrow the  electric  chair  and — deatli :  "  ^1 
life  for  a  life"  Just  if  not  merciful — hu- 
man revenge,  if  not  Christian  forgiveness ! 
I  make  no  appeal. 

Frank !  you  ?  And  who  behind  you  ? 
Harold  ? — and  Nan — Nan,  with  a  child  on 
her  breast  ?  My  God  !  my  God  ! 

My  child  ?  And  Nan  true  to  me  ? 
Worked  till  her  mother  found  her  ?  The, 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     153 

mother's  unfailing  instinct — stronger,  surer 
than  love's  !— 

Father,  the  marriage  -  "service.  These 
friends  will  witness. 

Nan,  at  last  you  are  an  honest  woman— 
my  wife  ! 

God  !  this  pain  in  my  heart !  The  chill, 
the  dark — what  is  it  ?  Nan,  my  wife,  where 
are  you  ?  I  feel  you — I  cannot  see  you — 

Mem  Vaterf  Why,  father  !  So  pale,  so 
wan  and  weeping.  Why  do  you  glare  so 
at  me  ?  I  kept  my  word !  I  was  true 
to  my  oath !  "I  spilled  the  blood,  to  the 
last  red  drop — of  the  woman  who  stood  be- 
tween— " 

He  shudders,  and  cries  out.  He  is  tor- 
tured, consumed  by  the  hell-flame  of  vain  re- 
morse !  He  gnashes  his  teeth  on  a  devil's 
curse — He  is  gone  ! 


15-i     THE   WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN. 

Poor  father  !     Poor  father  ! 
•  ••••• 

So  cold — so — dark — 

Air  !  Brandy  !  I  am  faint,  sick,  dying  ! 
Save  me  !  I  am  fearful — I  have  sinned  !  My 
hand  is  stained  with  innocent  blood— 

What  is  he  saying,  the  good  old  priest  ? 
"  The  Blood  of  Christ  shall  ivash  it  I " 

Christ,  I  believe  ! — My  father  shrive  me  ! 
By  the  Blood  of  Christ — I  shall  be  made 
— whiter  than  snow — whiter  than  snow- 
Harold  —  Frank  —  Nan  —  give  me    your 
hands. 

Once  more — on  my  brow — your  benedic- 
tion, my  Father1. 

Mother !  And  beside  her,  Mary !  O 
Mary  ! — She  smiles — she  says  she  forgives 
me — she  is  looking  past  me,  to  Harold — 


THE  WOMAN  WHO  STOOD  BETWEEN.     155 

Harold,  Mary  is  beckoning  to  you.     She 
is  whispering  "  Soon,  soon,  soon!" 

The .  song  of  angels     .      .      .      the   light 
of  heaven 


Mother  !     Mary  !  what  are  you  saying  ? 
"  Hate  loses  causes  ;    Love  wins  them  !  " 
Love  Love  Love 


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